New Year!

So it's 2014 now.

I think I'm going to try, yes, I know I've said it before, to write down funny things the boys say.

Firstly, Joe learned to skip yesterday... very important milestone. He was proud of himself.

Today we went to feed the ducks in Windsor. David saw a long line of swans swimming up the river and shouted out "Mummy! It's a traffic jam of swans!"

Good Grief, it's been over a year!

I'm a rubbish blogger, but I shall try to do better. I've been reading back what I've posted in previous years and it's a lovely way to keep memories alive. 

So since last I posted, the boys went to Pre-school for a term at Angels in Wraysbury. Joe's keyworker was Jane and David's was Tracey. They both loved them and the school and I was pretty sad we had to pull them out of Pre-school to go to Nursery. 

This decision was taken because the boys were both offered spaces at Pippins Nursery which is part of Pippins School in Colnbrook. Pippins School is a foundation school and can set their own entry criteria... the top one being that if a child is registered in the nursery then they are automatically offered a place at the school. They've been really happy at nursery and it was definitely the right thing to do. They love their teachers, Mrs Fowler, Mrs Day and Mrs Laflin and have made lots of friends. The school have even employed a speech therapist just for them every other Thursday morning. Joe adores Miss Johnston and will do anything for her. David just wants to be outside playing and thinks Miss Johnston is a pain. Although he does like her secret boxes and has started to work more with her. 

Last May we went on holiday to Menorca and had a wonderful time. We had a lovely villa with a pool and the boys didn't want to go anywhere else. I think the longest we lasted on a beach was 45 minutes! In about 3 weeks time we are off to a villa in Lanzarote for a week, so we'll see how we get on there!

The boys are now 4 years old and certainly know their own minds. It's quite hard work with the two of them at the moment and I'm thinking I am going to have to employ a reward chart fairly soon to aid with discipline. 

Oh David had his grommets fitted in March and his hearing has definitely improved. We just now have selective hearing instead. Funny how he always hears the word chocolate!

I will write more this year. I don't want to forget how my boys are as they grow up and learn new things. I can't believe they are off to big school in September. Where has the time gone?

It's been a while...

We've been living life and I haven't had a chance to write recently.

So, last Thursday evening Joe fell out of his cot and broke his right arm. We heard the thud and went running up. He cried for a little while, not long and soon settled back down and went to sleep. He whimpered occassionally through the night, but the next morning it was plain to see that his arm was causing him pain, so off we went to A&E. Joe apparently has a very high pain threshold and barely winced when the doctor found where he'd hurt his wrist. 3 x-rays later it was discovered that Joe has a buckle fracture. They gave him a strong painkiller which totally knocked him out and they then put a cast on his arm. He woke up just as they finished and was very cross to find this big white thing on his arm...

Today we had to go back to the fracture clinic to have the proper cast put on. The clinic was already running an hour behind when we got there at 9.30. The rather cross receptionist told us this was because two doctors had failed to arrive. Oops! Anyway, Joe and I went for a little walk around the shop and bought some little cars to keep him occupied during our wait.

So he now has a new, blue cast which is really hard! It certainly hurts if he clonks you with it! The good news is that he only has to have it on for another two weeks.

So, in other news, we had the boys' third birthday party on Sunday. It was great. We held it at Gymboree and 17 of their little friends came along to help them celebrate. Joe managed everything, despite his broken arm. Cakes came out well and I really enjoyed all the baking I did!

The turtle cakes were made of cupcakes so there was no need to bring a knife to cut the cake! Tasted good too!

They are coming out with some funny words and phrases these days...

Helicopters are known as helipocters

David was tidying up his cars earlier on when he just came out with "I give up!" I wonder who he gets that from then? Me perhaps?

So there are just two more sleeps until the boys' third birthday. Where has the time gone? They are definitely little boys now. My babies are gone. If I close my eyes I can still remember those precious, precious newborn cuddles. Don't grow up too quickly my babies. x

The Wheels on the Bus

Go round and round.... etc etc!

I'm proud of my boys today. We sing The Wheels on the Bus a lot. But today was the first time that they totally joined in with ALL of the words and actions. A big deal for us really.

They had sort of regressed a bit speech wise, during the Christmas period as they were both so poorly. But saying that, the last couple of days they have been talking non-stop!

It's lovely that they are now able to tell me what they want or need. I love that we can talk.

And I'm totally amazed at how good David is at his colours. He now knows red, yellow, orange, blue, green, purple, black and brown.

Clever boys... I'm so proud of you.

x

My lovely boys!

Poor old Joe has the pox so had to stay at home with Daddy this morning while I took David to an eye appointment at the hospital.

I got David in the car and then got in myself. As we started to drive off a shout went up from the back seat...

"Stop! Mummy! Where my Joe?"

I explained that Joe was staying home with Daddy and David was coming out with Mummy. He calmed down and off we went.

Got to the hospital and as we were a bit early we went to the cafe for a biscuit break... David chose a choc chip cookie and then pointed to a smartie cookie and said "Dat one for my Joe" so we bought that too.

All the way home a little voice was heard saying "see my Joe now"

Got home and David comes tearing in to Daddy.... "Where my Joe? Where my Joe?"

Joe was in bed having a nap. So David runs to the bottom of the stairs and yells up... "Wake up Joe!"

A little voice over the monitor says back... "My David come home, yaaaay!"

Blimey, the hugs they've shared since then. Holding hands, sitting next to each other and kissing. You'd think they'd not seen each other for 2 years not 2 hours!

Oh and Joe loved his biscuit!

David wouldn't leave his side this afternoon... as you can see...

Mathematical Genius?

Oh there have been some very clever goings on today!

David has spent most of the day holding the telephone handset pointing at the numbers and telling me which ones they are... The ones he definitely knows are: 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8!

Later on we were singing "Zoom, zoom, zoom" and they have both got counting backwards from 5.

Then David asked me what the sticker on the back of his laptop was... it was the triangular ELC symbol, so I told him it was a triangle... over the course of the next couple of hours he then brought me several different triangles each time telling me they were a triangle.

David definitely knows what yellow is and Joe definitely knows red and I think he knows blue too.

Finally the best bit of today was that finally, finally, they both sat down and listened to a story properly... and what was that story? yup, The Gruffalo... which we were given 2 new copies of at today's grand opening of the new Children's Centre in Colnbrook.

A very good day.

x

We have had a FABULOUS day!

Oh what a day! A day of firsts and a day of fun!

Daddy went off on a booze cruise this morning, so we invited Yvonne over for the day.

Yvonne and I decided to take the boys on their first trip to the cinema to see Arthur Christmas.

The boys LOVED it! They weren't scared of the dark and they didn't find it too noisy (David had a little nap for half an hour)

They tried popcorn for the first time and liked that very much too.

The film was great, so funny and entertaining. All I could hear from Joe (who was sitting on Yvonne's knee) was "ooooh! Look at dat! What dat? OOOh! Wow!" everytime there was music they danced. They just loved it. And I will admit to a little tear of happiness as I watched them enjoying themselves so much.

Then we went off to The Ostrich for lunch. Where they sat very nicely and had their first go of dipping chips in ketchup... Joe is a tomato addict and had eaten all the tomatoes off my plate, so let him have some ketchup. Yup, he loved that too... David took a bit of convincing, but eventually he decided he loved it too! Then the chef brought them both out a bowl of ice-cream for sitting so nicely!

Fab day and so looking forward to going to the pictures with them again.... Happy Feet 2 anyone?

x

Whizz, Whoosh, Bang, Weeeeeee!

Yes, it was bonfire night last night. We had a wonderful time.

We spent the afternoon around at our friends Dawn and Ian's house so the boys could play with their little friend Milo.

Milo's lovely grandparents were also there and at about 5.30 we went to a lovely little Italian Restaurant in Datchet for an early dinner. The boys all sat on proper chairs and were so good. They demolished 2 and a half bread baskets and 2 glasses of apple juice before their pizza came. We were all very proud of our boys.

Next was time for the excitement of the evening. We went to the firework display and funfair at Upton Court Park. Milo's grandparents paid for them all to go on 3 rides, so they were very spoilt and had a fantastic time.

I wasn't sure how they were going to react to the fireworks, but I needn't have worried. They all absolutely loved them. Especially the really loud bangy ones. Those made them giggle hysterically. They were a bit sad when it was all over.

Then home to bed. By the time we were home, changed and ready for bed it was 10pm. The happy side effect of this late bedtime was a 9am start this morning... what's not to like?

Clever little boy...

I think David's got it all going on upstairs...

This afternoon he wanted a bus that Joe was playing with. He didn't snatch it. He waited very patiently for about half an hour. Then when Joe put it down, David quickly found a super dooper police car with flashing lights and everything. He ran over to Joe, gave him the police car and then picked up the bus!

He was happy, Joe was happy with the police car and I was happy that my boy is grown up enough to work out a way of getting something without upsetting himself or his brother!

Well done David!

The boys were 29 months old on Tuesday. I can't believe that next month they will be 2 and a half! Good grief, time is flying by.

They are coming out with new words all the time. Some good words this week have been "Harvester" (we were looking at a book with farm machines in it) and "Dinosaur" (yes, watching Peppa Pig)

We have a tablecloth on the table which had Noah's Ark and lots of animals on it. They boys like pointing to the animals and trying to say what they are. Rhino comes out as "nhino" which I think is very cute... Elephant is "Elephaphaphant" also very cute. Best of all though a deer is an "oh dear"

Don't grow up too quickly my darling boys.

x

David and Joe having a good old giggle on their 29 month birthday!

1st August - one of my favourite days of the year!

Yes, I love the 1st August.

On the 1st August 2008 my dreams finally started coming true. Because it was on that date that I had a blood test and discovered that after 3.5 years of trying, 1 miscarriage, 3 biochemical pregnancies, 3 months of clomid, 3 months of tamoxifen and 3 cycles of ICSI that I was PREGNANT!

So I'm always happy on the 1st August.

We're getting the paddling pool out for celebratory splashing later on! 

It would seem to me that 3 is the magic number!

x

You must be so proud of your boys

You must be so proud of your boys a lovely lady said to me this afternoon. And yes, I am!

We've had a fabulous day today. The weather was rather gloomy this morning, so I decided to get the paints out for the boys. Normally Joe isn't bothered about painting, but this morning he really got stuck in! He had a hold of that paintbrush and off he went painting sheet after sheet of paper for about 20 minutes.

David decided the most fun to be had was to rub his hands in the paint on his paper plate, then rub them together and then do hand prints. They both had a lot of fun and I'm pleased I went to the effort of getting them out.

Here's David using the stamps, before he discovered the joy of hand printing! I don't have photos of that... I was too busy making sure the wetwipes were close to hand!

Straight after our art session the boys had a deep, bubbly bath. After that they ran around upstairs for a while. David was clutching his cuddly cow and shouting "Tiger! Tiger!" as he ran around. Meanwhile, Joe had hidden in my wardrobe and I could hear a voice inside it shouting "Horses! Horses!"

After lunch, I was getting the boys shoes together ready to go out and was counting out loud... one, two, three, four... a little voice behind me finished off with "five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!" I didn't know David could count! Joe frequently says "two, two, two" for counting, but I've never heard all the other numbers from either boy!

This afternoon we went to Hitcham House Farm. It's just a little place which produces it's own ice-cream from their dairy herd. The boys shared a raspberry ice-cream and I indulged in a belgian chocolate one. Joe had my cornet and David the raspberry one. They looked so cute sitting on the picnic bench in the field while we ate them. Over the fence we could see the Ayrshire cows who provided the milk for our ice-cream and there were also sheep, ducks and chickens. We wandered around the field for a little while and had a chat to the ice-cream lady. The boys thought the ice-cream lady was lovely especially when she brought out her 12 week old granddaughter to show them. This was also the lovely lady who said I must be so proud of my boys. And I most certainly am!

A quick play in the garden when we got home and all in all, we've had a super day.

Three years ago yesterday....

Three years ago yesterday was the day my boys were created. July 18th was the day I had my eggs collected.

It's amazing to think that this time three years ago I was nervously sitting by the phone waiting to hear how many of my eggs had fertilised and now I have two 28 month old boys quietly snoozing in their cots!

My life changed forever that day and it certainly changed for the better thanks to the miracles worked by Mr W and all his fabulous colleagues at the Lister Hospital.

x

First accident with blood for David

Oh my poor baby.

Running around in the garden and he tripped up and bit his lip... there was a lot of blood, but amazingly, not too many tears!

It'll be interesting to see what his lip looks like when he wakes up from his nap.

Not bad going to get to 24 months and 29 days without an accident involving blood!

They are doing that growing up thing again...

I'm not quite sure what happened over the weekend, but my boys seem to have grown up again.

Ok, so they had a haircut on Friday, which always makes them look older. We had Yvonne staying for the weekend which was lovely and of course was an extra adult to pay them attention.

Joe has started saying Thank You, when given something. For a week or two he has been saying "Da" when you give him something, but yesterday in the pub I think he realised what the meaning of Thank you is... As our food arrived, obviously Neil, Yvonne and I said thank you as it was put in front of us. Yvonne asked for some ketchup to go with her meal and when it arrived, Joe was the one who said "Thank you". Since then, he has said thank you at every opportunity, completely un-prompted.

Both boys have said "eye" for bye for a long time. Suddenly over the weekend, David developed it  into "bye bye" Beautifully pronounced.

This afternoon we went to the garden centre to buy a watering can for each of them. I decided to let them walk and hold my hand. They were so good. Didn't pull or try to run off and were so proud to carry their watering cans to the checkout. I asked David if he was going to water Mummy's flowers... he said "yes, pretty"... melted my heart.

We took them swimming yesterday morning. We haven't been going regularly up until the last month... Yesterday they had their armbands on. Unfortunately as we got in the pool the wave machine was going and so they were a little unsettled. Once the waves, and the stupid squirty octopus had done their thing, we got in the pool and had a good old splash around... three of the boys' friends were there... Harry, Emilio and Lukas. All of them had a great splash. I was really proud of the boys for floating on their own, kicking their legs and from going from floating on their tummies to floating on their backs, all by themselves. Clever, clever little boys. I'm so looking forward to our holidays and being able to take them swimming every day.

So, it looks like the babies are gone forever and for now, the toddlers are here.

Love my boys so much. xxx

My babies are 2 years old!

And so another year has passed, well whizzed by. Two years old already! Where does the time go?

They've had a great year, they've learned to crawl extremely well and, eventually, to walk! Now they run around everywhere. They talk and they know how to make their needs known. Most of all they are gorgeous and I love them more and more every day.

They've had a fantastic birthday week. It all started on Saturday 12th March when we put up their slide... Sunday we had a birthday tea party with Granny, Grandad, Uncle Carl, Auntie Kerstin, Emily, Tim, Karen, Toby and Lucy. Great fun was had by all and the boys became owners of ride on trains.

David's cake was eaten on Sunday and then on Monday, the Kleek toddlers came to help us eat Joe's birthday cake. More fun was had in the garden with the new slide, the trains, balls and general running around.

Tuesday saw us at Twintastic polishing off the cake with our twin friends...  and then in the afternoon I put their new trampoline together...

And on Wednesday, their actual birthday, we took a trip on a train with Grandad to the London Aquarium, which they loved. As we had Grandad with us, it meant that we could let them wander around as there were three grown ups... one for each boy and another for the pram!

After lunch we took them for a walk across Westminster Bridge so they could see the Houses of Parliament. Great excitement for the boys when the Police helicopter hovered overhead, police cars screeched to a halt near us and on the river the police boat and fire boat arrived... not sure what was going on, but it made two little boys very happy!

Back home on the train to finish off unwrapping birthday presents and to eat more cake for tea... what a great few days, and thanks to everyone for making the boys' second birthday a very special one. 

Loving my boys

Oh they are so gorgeous. They always have been and I suspect they always will be.

I've always said I want them to be babies forever, and I do really. But they are so much fun at the moment.

Their speech is coming along nicely. Today's top word has been "Na-nana" for banana. I love it. Bananas will forever be Na-nanas to me now.

The little conversations we can have with their limited speech are great. We were driving along today and they are giving me a commentary as we go... Tractor... nee naw... woof woof and very sadly "no choo choo" as we went under the railway bridge and a train didn't go over the top.

This evening at bedtime, Joe finished his bottle of milk and, with an evil glint in his eye, tipped the bottle up and let the last drop spill out saying "splash" as it went. It's hard to be cross when he's so funny. His eczema is flaring up at the moment, but luckily he loves having his cream put on... he blows raspberries as it comes out of the tub and then giggles hysterically while it's rubbed in!

The other day David brought me just one of his shoes and then went and sat by the back door... unfortunately he was still in his pyjamas so he had to get dressed before he went out to play in the "darden"

They are loving the garden. They don't particularly want any toys to play with, they just enjoy the freedom to run around... preferably on their own. They push me back into the kitchen and then hammer on the door when they are ready to come in.

Is there a pause button? I don't want them to grow up... it's only 12 sleeps until their 2nd birthday.

The boys enjoying their new hobby with Dee.... Jumping up and down in muddy puddles.... Peppa Pig has a lot to answer for!

Happy boys laughing at me through the kitchen door. They love playing out by themselves.

Oooh feel the love.

x

Speech Therapy Looms

I've been thinking for a while that the boys' speech is lagging behind a bit. I'm not too worried, they've been a little bit behind hitting most of their milestones but they've always got there in the end.

Just before Christmas I noticed that there was a SALT drop in session at our local Children's Centre. I decided that once the boys were walking I'd go and drop in. Today was that day. Kathryn was lovely and we spent an hour with her while she observed the boys and interacted with them.

They do indeed have a bit of a speech delay, but the words they say are very clear and they have good understanding.

As Joe has had a few perforated eardrums in the past, Kathryn has referred them for hearing tests to make sure all is well with their hearing and we are on the waiting list for a speech therapy playgroup which we should hear about after Easter.

I'm pleased I went and got the ball rolling. Hopefully before too long they'll be talking the hind legs off the donkeys up the lane!

Words, words, words

I need to write down the cute words while I remember them, because before I know it, my Little Bundles will be all grown up and won't say cute little words.

So we have

Eeeeeee! - which means Weeeee! usually used when they are doing Tiger Racing up and down the sitting room.

Then we have "oooes" which is obviously shoes.

David is confused about sheep, he thinks they are dogs and therefore say "oeuf oeuf!" like dogs with a French accent!

More to come as I remember them. 

Toddlers at last!

So, finally, after taking their first tentative steps way back in November, my boys are walking!

We bought their new shoes on 2nd January and they've been coming along in leaps and bounds since then. I've taken them on training walks around our close and today they went to the park with their friend Harry and were released from the pram to go wandering where they liked!

They had a ball! They loved choosing where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do. Joe made friends with a *big* boy too! (The big boy was only about 2.5, but Joe thought he was cool!) David had a go in the swing, but soon wanted to come out so he could do some more walking.

They both loved being in the little wendy house and liked sitting on the seats and banging on the table...

Then we had a first from Joe... he sat in a muddy puddle! His bottom half was completely covered in mud and he had about an inch of mud on his shoes! I don't have any photos of the swamp monster as I was trying to prevent David from walking in front of the swings at the time!

I think we are going to have a lot of fun this year now they are mobile!

x

Poorly boys... and the wrong medicine!

Both boys have a very nasty cough, so I took them to the doctor this morning.

After waiting in the waiting room for 45 minutes, we were in with the doctor for approximately 3 minutes. They've both got viral upper respiratory tract infections and need calpol and nurofen. The doctor also prescribed a linctus for each of them... I'd never heard of them so looked them up. The one prescribed for David is not to be used in children under the age of 6 and the one prescribed for Joe is not to be used in children or adolescents under the age of 18!

Sigh. Again.