Star in the making

Wednesday 8th December 2010 was declared the 'best night of my life' by Esther. She was Mary in her school play. The play was about santa going on strike and each year did a different bit of the play ending with the nativity. She was really pleased to be Mary even if Joseph did pick his nose! (I stole this picture from my friends blog since we had been to the Monday afternoon dress rehersal as pre-school children weren't allowed to the evening performance and we had forgotten our camera.) Esther loved the evening so much because she got to play in the school while she was waiting to go on. It must have been fun because she was bouncing off the ceiling when I picked her up.I was a bit mad though as I had asked if there were any spare tickets and was told none were available but my friend told me there had been rows of unoccupied seats at the back. Annoying.

Eliza was an angel in her pre-school concert but guess what, I didn't take my camera to that either....

School Blues

Esther is having a bit of a hard time at the moment. She's been crying, more like sobbing actually, every night and every morning about going to school. She cries at school because she wants her mummy. When I pick her up she's fine but I don't really know what to do about it. I think it's really just the free time like lunch and play time that she starts to feel sad. I know exactly how she must be feeling because I can remember feeling exactly like that at infants school myself, don't that say that parents attributes are exacerbated in the kids? I can't remember how I got over it so I'm not really sure how to help her. She thinks it's not fair that Eliza gets to stay at home so I remind her that when she was 2 she stayed at home too. (Eliza started preschool a couple of weeks ago just for one morning a week and loves it, don't think I blogged about that one... second child syndrome)

After about 2 hours of crying about it this evening I said we had to make a plan. It's not that she doesn't like school, she just misses me and feels that when she gets home there is hardly any time to spend together. So this was our deal: Esther tries to stop crying and feeling sad and I or Ben will come and have lunch with her once every other week at school (the school encourages parents and even siblings to come for lunch sometimes with the children) and after school (this requires a bit more organisation on my part...) we'll have dinner asap so there is more time to relax and spend time together before bed.

Any one got any ideas?

Growing up

Esther came home from school yesterday with her first reading book with words in it. At her school they use the Oxford Reading Tree which starts with some books about a family - Mum, Dad, Chip, Biff, Kipper and Floppy the dog. The only words in the book were the character names and the word 'and' but she can read the whole thing and is very proud and excited to be starting to learn to read. She is also getting into the zac the rat books on starfall.com. It's good to see her enthusiastic about learning. She has also been asking for a couple of weeks now if she can learn the piano. I'm not sure how me teaching her will go and I think she may be a little young but we'll give it a go.

Best Buddy

At the end of the last school year the older children at the school started popping into the preschool every now and again to mix with and help the kids that were going to start school. The school has a buddy system where each child in reception class has a buddy from year 6. I can't remember if I've mentioned this whole set up previously so sorry if I'm repeating myself. Esther's buddie is called Cassie and she is just brilliant. Apart from the things that all buddies do she has completely gone the extra mile to befriend Esther and help her settle in. She waited by the gates for Esther to arrive just about every day, plays with her at lunch time, sent her an ecard for her birthday along with bringing a gift for her to school. She came to tell me she was worried because Esther would cry for me at lunch time and she was concerned because she didn't know what to do. Esther tells me about some of the fun things they do together and she laughs about them! I'm so thankful that Cassie takes such good care of Esther and couldn't ask for a better buddy for her!

Thank you so much Cassie - you have made a big difference to Esther's school experience!

Halloween

For Halloween this year I couldn't bring myself to buy some tacky dress-up from Tesco for £10 a pop for the girls so I talked them round to choosing something from their extensive collection of dressing up clothes and treated them to a new 50p wand each! I didn't get a good picture of Esther, she was a princess witch, yes there is such a thing! She had this dress on with a witches hat and wand. When I took the picture she had already been to a 'little spooks tea party' at our neighbours house and couldn't seem to keep the lollipop our of her mouth long enough for me to take a decent picture! Eliza dressed up as 'dinderella' of course! Her favourite and I think it suits her so well.

Alice wore an outfit picked out by the girls and amazingly kept the tiara on all night!

Love this little cutie!

On the Saturday before Halloween it was the church trunk or treat activity and Halloween Carnival. Ben was at his brother Sam's stag weekend so I took the girls, we got there late but made it through all the carnival activities and Eliza won the dress up for her age category - she was so pleased, Esther felt it was a win for the team and didn't mind not winning hers. The trunk or treat was a hit with the girls - who wouldn't enjoy collecting free sweets from the boot of 20 cars?! As soon as we had been round we jumped in the car and headed home as it was well past the girls bedtime.

Dissappointingly we didn't get our pumpkins carved out in time for Halloween and they are still sitting outside the front door uncarved (minus the one I used to make pumpkin soup for dinner today...) We are planning on carving them ready for my parents arriving at the weekend but I'm not sure if it really will happen... Our evenings are just so busy this week (and last week). Luckily the girls didn't think anything of not going out treak or treating on the Sunday since we had had the trunk or treat the night before. We went out to an open house on Sunday afternoon for someone from church who flew out today to be a missionary in Australia so by the time we got back we'd missed most of the trick or treaters - now we also have about 50 lollipops which must leave the house soon or I will eat them as I have no self control. We didn't even get any Halloween decorations out as we had a house viewing on the 30th. Turns out he put an offer in on the house 4 doors down who had just reduced its price and had no forward chain. Boo hoo. The good thing is our house has stayed pretty tidy and it's been 4 days since the viewing!

Birthday girl

I'm not sure how this happened but somehow 5 years has passed since we welcomed Esther into out family. In some ways I can't remember what it was like before she was here! The night before her birthday we travelled up to my parents house. In the morning Esther woke up to rooms full of balloons and waffles with lots of different topping for breakfast. Auntie Bex and Uncle Joel were there too. She opened her cards and presents- she had asked for a baby Annabell doll so that's what the big box is. In the afternoon Uncle Dan and Auntie Natalie came with their 2 year old niece. Then in the evening my Uncle Sid and Auntie Jean had a Caileidh for their 40th Wedding Anniversary. The girls LOVED the dancing and Esther and Eliza got to play with my cousins children plus everyone sang happy birthday to Esther so she thought it was a party for her! We had a birthday party for Esther today, it was only going to be a small affair - Esther invited 6 girls from school but it turned out smaller than planned as 2 didn't turn up! Esther didn't even seem to notice and had a great time anyway! Here is she with her friends having happy birthday sung to her!

Blowing out the candles:

The cake - Ben and I decorated it last night and I think it turned out pretty good!

Here's a bit about Esther:

She likes to colour and draw, loves playing out and riding her bike, especially since she can do it without stablisers. She is really good at making new friends but is also a mummy's girl. She is usually pretty good at sharing and loves to help out with Alice and play with her. She is trustworthy and super helpful plus alot of fun! She loves to wrestle too. Esther is a good example to her younger sisters and WE LOVE HER!

Too funny

The other day Esther was talking to my mum on the phone and was telling her how Alice can crawl and that she has teeth now. My mum asks how many teeth Alice has and Esther replies 'I think about 120.'!! I silently laughed my head off and thought no more of it until I was telling someone else about Alice's teeth and Esther inisits that I am wrong when I say she has only 2 teeth, she really has lots more, about 120. How many teeth does Esther think she has then if Alice has 120! She can count pretty well so it suprised me that this is logical to her. I'm really enjoying seeing her make judgements on time, number, age etc so funny the things she comes up with.

Eliza on the other hand is being pretty cute too. She asks me at random times during the tay 'Mummy did you miss me?' She asks me when I'm putting her in the car after we've been shopping or when we are playing in the house -I'm not sure she realises that mostly you miss someone when you haven't seen them for a period of time! Since we have to pass Esther's school to get to most places she always tells me we forgot to get Esther when we pass by, she misses her!

Playing in the Rock Pools

One of the days on our holiday we set off in search of a beach on the south coast of cornwall. We wanted somewhere not too far from where we were staying as we had a doctors appointment for Alice (she had an infected nappy rash poor thing). We decided to go to a little coastal town called Looe 13 miles away which in Corwall takes as long as 30 miles anywhere else, teeny, indirect roads.When we got there we were initially a bit dissappointed to find no sandy beach but a rock beach. Actually, a beach full of rock pool and seaweed makes pretty interesting discovery time for both kids and parents! We had some nets, buckets and spades and the kids had a great time investigating the contents of the rock pool finding crabs, shrimps, lots of limpets etc. They also got a few war wounds slipping on the rocks and seaweed. Unfortunately this type of beach is no good for a baby. It was the middle of the day and actually pretty hot, there was no way of getting the pushchair down to the beach and nowhere flat or slightly soft to lie a baby down or even change a nappy and there wasn't even really a comfortable place for anyone to sit! It'll be a great place to go when the girls are just that bit bigger.
Here's Alice and Daddy enjoying a comfy seat on the beach: Esther (wearing Eliza's sun hat!) with Looe island in the background:

Eliza looking good in her funky pink outfit:

Esther's big day!

So after much anticipation the day finally arrived for Esther to start school. I can't believe it has come round but hey it's good thing to see your children grow and develop and become even bigger and even better. Luckily I wasn't feeling emotional which is super suprising since I cry over the silliest things. She had a good time, she knew nearly all the kids anyway from pre-school and the first day was only 2 hours anyway, she's not full time for another week and a half. After we dropped her off the 3 of us came home and took a nap! Luckily I set my alarm or who knows what time we would have woken up to pick her up! Here are some photos of my grown-up school girl: Going a bit crazy waiting to leave:

She was very particular about how she wanted her hair!

Can we leave now?

We're going to miss her at home during the day but here's hoping she'll love school!

Sports Day

It was sports day today at Esther's preschool so Alice, Eliza and I went to cheer her on. She missed sports day last year so I wasn't sure how Esther would fare. I was amazed - she won all her races - granted there were only 5 kids in the race and she was probably the oldest one in her race but still she did a great job - I was impressed! I wonder if she has my competitive streak... Here is her winning the bean bag/hula hoop race: The beginning of the race:

Eliza (quite bored by now but still willing to flash me a smile):

There was a mum's race too but fortunately I was holding a sleeping Alice - it was pretty competitive!

Here is Esther in her just running race coming from behind to clinch the win! Go Esther!

Conversations with a 4 year old.

Kids just get better and better don't they? You love them as cute little babies, then you are entertained by them as toddlers but it's fab to see their minds develop, question and explore the world around them. On a 20 minute car journey the other day I was explaining basically how tennis works whilst we were listening to Wimbledon on the radio (I don't usually listen to sport on the radio but it was Wimbledon and it was Murray so how could I not??). These are some of the other questions Esther had for me: Do you think we should get a sports car? (It should be pink she said until I pointed out that maybe Ben wouldn't be keen on pink so she changed it to rainbow coloured) What presents did you get for your wedding? What happens when we die? I was glad to have the time to chat with her and answer her questions, especially let her know what I know and believe about life after death. Long may these chats continue!

School so soon!

Esther starts school in September and it's coming fast! I suddenly feel like I've wasted so much time these past 4 years and have the need to make the most of the next few months before she'll be gone to school. Thursdays are our day when we have no plans so I asked the kids what they would like to do. They wanted to go to the park with a picnic and to storytime at the library so that's what we did and instead of sticking to a time schedule or just leaving because I was starting to get bored we kicked back a bit and only left when one of the girls needed the toilet! I was a bit hesitant about storytime at the library since Eliza usually just runs around or makes a collection of all the pink and purple books she can find which I then have to put back or guiltily leave it for the librarians! Today though she actually sat and listened to the stories. It's a small library so there was only 1 other child there today but the girls enjoyed it and I got to browse and find a book I wanted instead of chasing the kids around, win-win!

Esther is really excited for school - infact she was playing 'schools' with the neighbour who is 6 today in the front garden. We bought her a school dress the other day too from our fab charity shop for £1, she's already had it on.... Last week was the New Parent's meeting at her school. We got to try the school dinners (not impressed), meet the teacher and the 3 teaching assistants (for a class of about 24), the head teacher and the school council. Then we got a little look at the reception classroom. It was sooooooooooooooo lovely, I loved school but I wish my classroom had been like this! There are 2 computers, a smart board, and outdoor playarea just for the classroom and best of all there is a little room up in the corner of the classroom, a mezzanine type thing but partly enclose with windows - a bit like an indoor tree house - that is currently pretending to be a Chinese restaurant! It is child size too - I went up to investigate and had to duck to get in. Underneath it is a cosy corner with cushions and books and dressing up. It made ME excited for her, she is going to have a lovely time. Eliza is starting pre-school one morning a week (it's on the school site too) because I think she'll just miss Esther so this will give her something fun just for her.
I've just got to focus on the fact that actually it's quite exciting and not feel sad! Any tips for fun things to do before she starts school I'd love to hear them!

Things on Esther's mind

I think Esther is excited to move house (not that we have a new house to move to) and tonight she got out of bed an hour after I'd put them to bed to ask me what stuff we were taking to our new house. Are we taking our drawers? Are we taking our books? Are we taking her bed because she doesn't like her bed and wants a new one! Then when I had answered her I told her to get to bed to which she replied 'Keep calm, I have something to tell you'! Cracked me up, she was so serious but sooooooo stalling for time! Credit where credit is due - sounds like something I say to her when she is on the brink of hysterics!

Every penny counts!

We've been looking to move house for over a year now, not quite the right time yet but hopefully soon. Anyway, yesterday we went for a walk to the Bluebells woods (which was gorgeous, Bex took some more fab pics soon to be uploaded) and on the way back Esther asked if we could plant some bluebells in our garden. I told her we would plant some in our new garden when we move house because if we planted them in this garden we probably (hopefully) won't see them bloom. She asked when we were moving house and we explained it all depends on money to which she replied that she had some in her money box we could have. When we got home she went straight to her money box, emptied it and gave it to me telling me it was for the new house! How thoughtful and selfless!! She has been asking me all day if I have the money for the house somewhere safe. Unfortunately all the coins were 1p's or 2p's but it's the thought that counts!

Time is flying

How can it be that my 'newborn' is nearly/only 4 weeks old?? Feels like she's been here forever and I am really enjoying her! I think with my other 2 I always felt a bit more confident when they reached a couple of months old but this time I feel much more relaxed - maybe it's because I'm not too sleep deprived, thank you Alice and long may it continue! Babies change so fast - hurry home Bex, I need some decent pictures of my baby while she is still a baby!


Eliza has been having a few issues with wetting herself the past couple of weeks but it seems she is getting a bit better - we only went through 3 pairs of pants today! Still, I'd rather wash a few extra pairs of pants than change more nappies!

Esther is doing pretty well though her pre-school teacher took me aside on Monday and said Esther had a bit of a 'wobble' and kept asking for her mummy but after a few cuddles she cheered up apparently.

We survived the week without mum but she is back now for the weekend and to see Bex when she gets home on Tuesday - we're all pretty excited about that! It's been nice to get back into a routine and take charge of the house again!

Sisters

We finally got some pictures of the girls with Alice! They are both being great with her, Esther is especially affectionate and wants to help with everything - getting her changed, changing her nappy, soothing her if she is crying. She likes to sing to her, talk to her, show her toys and generally be a great big sister. Eliza is pretty good too but doesn't understand the purpose of being quiet at times! If Alice starts crying Eliza tells me that the baby wants a drink of 'tummy juice'! It cracked us up the first time she told us!

Fame!

When the girls and I were up at my parents we went to a little local museum (Dorman Museum) 3 times in 2 weeks - the kids love it there even though it is pretty small. The last time they were having a family event with all sorts of activities going on to promote the environment in the local area - it really was fantastic for kids of Esther's age and above especially, Eliza enjoyed it too but the activities were more geared towards kids a little older. They made cards, key rings, coloured in, made an owl mask, made fossils, watched a clown, were given balloon dogs on a straw, idetified different shells and seaweeds and had their faces painted! Whilst they were making cards a photographer came from the local paper and took pictures of the girls and a quote from me! I forgot to remind my parents to buy the paper but I found the story online! So here it is along with pictures of the girls (you have to scroll through the pictures to see them all....):
http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2010/03/16/teesside-kids-show-green-credentials-84229-26037565/

Other things we've been up to

Here is Esther in her black bin bag 'skirt' that we made at our funky fashion activity at church. She liked the idea but didn't want to go the whole hog and have a dress. When we got home Eliza dressed up and the made a really huge tower with daddy's help. It was soon knocked down! More pics of Eliza looking adorable - butter wouldn't melt!

You can see our 'vintage' kitchen in the background there - when we bought the house 5 years ago I was sure we would be getting a new kitchen asap. 5 years down the line we finally are! In the meanwhile cupboard draws and doors have literally fallen off but it has done well - it must be at least 35 years old! We are getting everything done - walls and ceiling skimmed, tiles on the floor, new skirting and coving, new units, appliances, lights etc and they are going to paint it for us too. Hopefully it will be done before the baby is born because I'm going to my parents for 2 weeks while the mayhem occurs!

I feel like I've been quite busy through January - I can't believe we are already into February! Plus, I am getting pretty organised - maybe it's a sign of maturity, or necessity when having baby number 3 - I already have Eliza's birthday present bought with 3 weeks left to go! I've even thought about Valentines Day and a gift for Ben!! Can't think what to get yet but hopefully will soon!

Ooooohhhh on another note, I finished all the squares for my quilt I've been making since last February - I just need some more white now to put them together and then put the whole thing together! I'm excited!

Communicating with baby

Esther asked me the other day if I would open my mouth so she could say something to the baby! Of course I did it but I had to stop myself from laughing my head off! She has asked me again too, I can see how it's logical in her mind - all credit to her for working that one out!

Eliza on her 'throne'.

Here are some pictures of Eliza on the potty - this was day one, hour one. She has been doing so brilliantly! I was a bit worried about taking her an hour away to Stake Conference yesterday so I put a nappy back on her which I wouldn't normally do but she didn't do anything in it -she was great! We have gone back to normal routine today, school run, ballet classes etc and we only had an accident at home later on - so fab. I can't believe how well she is doing considering she isn't 2 until the end of the month. Go Eliza!
I think Esther wishes she could use the potty all the time too.