Update + Christmas!

It has been a long time! It is mainly down to me not being very techy and having trouble making this blog app work on our tablet :s But everything is going well for us right now and we are feeling rather Christmassy! This year we have two trees, Ben had grown up with a fake tree and I always had a real tree so I am always a bit sad with our fake tree every year (Ben says a real tree is "inefficient!" Ha) but some friends told us where they had seen some Christmas trees for free (nothing inefficient about that!) so we had a little look through and found one I loved! Then our friend even brought it to our door on his car roof, lucky us! So we have a real one in the lounge decorated by me and a fake one in our kitchen/dining room decorated by Ben (still baubles to go on I think). Haha best of both worlds and even better that it was free :)

The boys: Oliver starts Playgroup in January and is now in a toddler bed having just turned three last week with a train party. He is definitely still a train boy, and particularly excited about the Santa Express we will be going on next week (a train ride where Father Christmas is on it too!!) Zachy is saying some words nowadays!! He says up, down, Dada, Mum, cheese, please, ta, hello, yes, no and amen and he makes a lot of animal noises and can chug like a train (of course!) This is a great breakthrough for him some he has always been the point-and-grunt type :) He loves running some giving us all cuddles and he loves to "bundle" Oliver (they say "bund-O!!!") The boys are often tackling each other (and us) to the floor, they just love it. I am looking forward to having lots of one-to-one time with Zach while Oliver is at Playgroup.

I am really looking forward to Christmas this year, and making it extra special to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and not getting totally carried away by presents (although there will be quite a few of those too!!) In between talking to the boys about Father Christmas and making reindeer paintings with their feet we have been talking and reading books about the true meaning of Christmas and we will be doing some acting out with them on Christmas Eve :) I think we will all play Wise men, Shepherds and everyone else all at once! We have also been watching some of these lovely, short Bible videos which are very simple and absolutely beautiful and made by our Church. http://www.lds.org/bible-videos/videos/the-nativity?lang=eng

Happy Christmas!

Boy number two, lover of electrical appliances

A video taken a couple of weeks ago in which Zach demonstrates his love of plugs.

Oliver the Tank Engine

I began writing this post a month ago, time got away from me!

I used to keep a daily journal, then when I became a Mum I wrote a couple of times a week, and now I have fallen off altogether! I am determined to get back on track since I have a hopeless memory (really, I have next to no memories of my childhood) and such lovely things are passing me by and I refuse to forget them and not be grateful for them!

So I have started scribbling the odd funny quote from Oliver, or something I want to remember about Zach and thought that I'd share, since they do totally crack me up :) And there are times and seasons for everything, and that is better than nothing!

Oliver the Tank Engine

Oliver has been obsessed with trains as long as I can remember. Definitely for 6 months, plus some probably. He can link trains to any conversion, and he chugs (moves his arms like pistons as though he is a train) from room to room and outside... anywhere! He doesn't walk, he doesn't run- he chugs. When Ben gets home from work Oliver greets him with,  "Hello Daddy! Let's chug around!" and so they do- around and around the sofas. It is very difficult to get him to stop, the most effective way my Dad found was to yell "red light!" and then "turntable!" and my lovely train/boy obediently stops and turns around.

It is hard work getting him away from his train set at mealtimes ("No! I want to chug away!") but once he is up to the table the train love continues. He suddenly gives a big sigh and says, "let's talk about steam trains!" And off he goes, chatting about funnels and how many wheels James has. We had cheese toasties for lunch today. When his came out of the grill Oliver said, "Ooh! There's STEAM- Woo-ooh!" Then he had a sip of his orange juice, which had just come out of the fridge:"ooh! It's cold! Like Percy! He says, "I want a scarf, I want a scarf!" (A favourite episode..)

He bumped his head the other day, I offered to rub and kiss it better. He bowed his head to me and said, "kiss my funnel"!! Sometimes he chugs in slow motion, really puffing and showing the strain, "ooh, it's rea-lly har-d, up Gor-dons's hi-ll..." and when I tell him he is a good boy he answers, "My not a boy, my a tank engine!" Our new favourite game is to turn on Classic FM and to use it as our chugging soundtrack. Dvorjak symphony number 9 was a big hit this week: "There's a cow on the track!" "The fat controller is going past on his bike!" Any piece will do, slow and beautiful ("It's a nice day for a chug around the Island of Sodor") or fast and frantic ("Hurry, hurry, hurry, sing the coaches")

The boy is hilarious, and every day brings a new train-related adventure.

Sunday photos, July 2013

Sunday, a church day. Always manages to be busier than the rest of the week, but lovely nonetheless. A good day to worship and serve at church, and spend time with my boys!

Summer Sunshine + HOUSE!!

What an AMAZING couple of weeks it has been- sunny, full of friends and family and small days out, all back home in Aberdeen. It was so lovely to be away down south, but when we settle somewhere new to me it always feels like home. I am lucky that I am adaptable like that naturally. But now I am not keen to move on anywhere, which is especially good news since WE ARE BUYING OUR FIRST HOUSE!!! The mortgage lenders are just finishing having everything go through at the moment- only one thing to go- a second valuation- since they didn't like the fact that the first was a standard Scottish one and not one of their chosen surveyors (ooh, picky!) but once that is done in a few days we should be all sealed and dealed! (dealt?! :D)

The house is in a village called Newmachar, which is 5 mins from where we live at the moment. It is lovely, with a good community feel and BUS ROUTES in and out! The best you could hope for and more really! Everything inside has been recently done and to an amazing standard. We actually put an offer on a different house at the beginning of last week, but got ourselves into an epic Scottish-style bidding war that we totally failed at! Then, *miraculously* a new house came on the market literally as we found that our offer on the other house was rejected. We jumped on it-it was just right- we saw it that night and put an offer in the next morning. We found out that our offer was accepted the next day. I can't quite believe that our speedy offer worked, it was only on the market for one afternoon!

To be honest this is an even better house than the first one we liked, and for a snip of the what the other one must have gone for! It is in pristine condition, the garden is more beautiful, it looks better from the outside. Maybe Heavenly Father had this in place for us a long time ago when Oliver got a place at Newmachar playgroup?! I can believe that of him :) Ben can cycle to work on a designated cycle path so I have the car and we will save all that petrol, AND it is the best possible place for keeping my violin pupils!!! Truly amazing.

Happy days, we have been truly blessed this past couple of weeks. We have worked hard to be ready for this but I believe that it is going to pay off very soon :) All fingers and toes are crossed that this last thing with the new home survey will go smoothly.

And now that the sun is out, I have been thinking about The Corrs. They always make me feel summery!

Visiting family/Ben on more work training

I have had such a lovely two weeks staying with my family while Ben has had two weeks of work training. He joined us for the weekends in Ipswich, including my birthday, which was lovely.
I loved spending time with my Mum. It was wonderful to get to know my growing teenage brothers. It was lovely to watch my boys playing trains with my Dad. I had a lovely time catching up with friends. It was great to see my boys play with their cousins who they rarely see. And it was very special to see my Grandparents as many times as possible while we were there.

Photos to follow when I am on the right computer!!

Pants

On Sunday afternoon I began potty training Oliver. He doesn't quite get it yet,  and has ZERO desire to sit in the potty or to give any notice at all... or even tell me when he's done something in his pants. I suppose I have got to laugh. The only reason I decided the time was right was because he keeps fishing around in his nappy and poking it out, or to the side, etc,  so we were having lots of accidents even with the nappy on!! What a game.  I just hung the washing out.  There were eight pairs of pants on the line- the work of two afternoons! The tally stands at 11 accidents, 1 (flukey!) success, plus 1 time where I caught him happily in action and we managed to get the tail end on the potty.

The only way is up!

Mellow Zach

I feel like I have been scraping by for the past couple of months- we have been trying to tackle Zach's cheeky night feedings for three months and his need for daytime milk from me was getting more and more obsessive (11 months old,  8+ times a day and he would scratch my face and neck from start to finish and was also getting a bit to keen to try out new acrobatic positions). On top of that he developed a new trait two months ago... extreme separation anxiety. He really would get very upset when he was held by anyone else, I was NOT allowed to leave the room and whenever we went out to anything in the village he clung to me. He was also at the height of his blood-curdling scream phase! Wo betide Oliver ever needing my attention,  poor good boy!

On one particular witching hour (4/5 o'clock-ish) in my despair I rang my Mum (on hands-freee, I was holding Zach is one arm and cooking the dinner with the other) quizzing her on whether she ever put any of us in childcare a morning a week!!! Her answer was... "It will pass"! And how right she was (as usual...)

Now I can type this because my dear second boy with the cute face has mellowed beyond belief. I decided that milk was a bit part of the problem, so over the past three weeks I have weaned him entirely off my milk. Life is truly blissful. He naps for two long stretches every day, Ben is able to put him to bed, HE HAS STOPPED SCREAMING! He has let other people hold him a couple of times for a couple of minutes each and there was even a smile once! Over the last three or so days he has been able to play a couple of metres away from me which is such a huge step for him! And, *drumroll* the past three nights he has SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT. He is back to being a joy to be around, and no longer drains everything I've got! I have ENERGY to do be a better wife, Mum, look after myself and am focusing on looking after other people. One friend was even concerned at quite how energetic I was- she called me manic!! Brilliant :) To top it all off it is SUNNY, I have a wonderful family, fabulous friends and going to church and living what I know to be true makes me so happy. Ahh, cloud nine!

Fergus Connor, Aberdeenshire photographer

On Friday 10th May our friend and brilliant photographer, Fergus Connor, spent some time with us doing a photoshoot. He was absolutely amazing: everything was so natural and fun- nothing was stressful or forced which was even more impressive when you consider our fairly uncooperative small boys! Even the fact that Oliver jumped and then fell in a big puddle didn't stop him! It was just a lot of fun. I am so pleased with what Fergus got. Now to choose one for the wall...!

It's been ages since I've blogged!

Here we go,  back into blogging, I have just been getting by with the boys keeping me so busy. I have also taken on more violin pupils and now teach 3.5 hours a week,  over three evenings. I really enjoy it but that definitely eats up my time too! Ben has the boys when he gets home from work on the days that I teach and they love being together so it's a win-win! Loads has happened, including a big boy haircut for Oliver, a big crack down on Zach's newborn-comparable milk intake, several road trips (Edinburgh, Hadrian's Wall, the Temple,  Grandma's 80th birthday,  the Lake District) and the boys are growing and growing! Oliver chats loads and the current obsession is trains, Zach is doing a couple of seconds of standing and goes up and down the stairs with ease. Zach is also quite the screamer, and is not keen to be held by anyone but me and Ben or be let out of my sight. Quite the Mummy's boy. Here are our recent happenings...

How did we end up in March?! + Zach's Sleep Training

I took a trip down south with the boys to see my family!

The laid-back approach to eating lunch...

The 9-hour train journey home...  keeping Oliver busy!!

Reunited! My boys watching the dolphins at Aberdeen harbour

February has been a big baking month for me and Oliver

Ben's Mum came to stay! A lovely break had by all- especially me!

Oliver coaxed Nanny T on to the digger :)

Getting grown up

Ben pointing out lighthouses at Aberdeen beach

An amazing sunny day in Stonehaven

Zach eyes up the icecream

Hoodles playbarn!

Ben and Zachy baby

So all in all a very happy time up here.

Zach's Sleep Training

The past week has been tiiiiring because we finally bit the bullet on Zach's night feeds. He is 9 and a half months old and was in a happy cycle of getting me up four times a night for feeds, every night... so I put my foot down and told him NO MORE MILK IN THE NIGHT. Here is the proof that sleep training works, and it is making us all happier:

Night 1: 
Woke at 10.20pm. We told him 'no more milk, it's sleepy time'... we soothed and left... he cried... after 5 minutes we soothed and left... he cried... 7 minutes... soothed... etc. He fell asleep by himself at 10.55pm. Wahoo! The first time he'd woken and gone back with no milk.
Woke again at 2.35am and we did the same regime... this time he fell asleep after an hour, 3.35am
Woke for good, happily, at 7am.

Night 2:
Woke at 10pm (uh oh) Same regime. This time it only took 13 minutes. Easy peasy.
Woke again at 3.40am... he tested the new regime and was up until 4.50am.
Woke for good at 7.30am.

Night 3:
Woke at 1.50am (wow!) Same thing. Took until 3.35am: zzzzz.
Woke just before 7.30am (HE ONLY WOKE ONCE? Wahoo!)

Night 4:
Woke at 4.35am (!!!!!!!) Same thing. Took until 5.35am, zzz again!
Woke at 7.30am.

Night 5:
Woke at 2.40am (not bad still!) Neaaaarly got himself back to sleep in 15 minutes but then got very cross... ended up practically screaming himself to sleep two hours later (he was calm when we went in though!) That was the saddest night.
Woke at 7am.

Night 6:
Woke at 4.45am(!!!!!) Same thing. Went in four times but it definitely made him worse so decided to leave him to it and fell asleep a lot quicker after that. Maybe 6am?
Woke for good at 8am.

Night 7: 
Woke at 5.40am (woweeeeeee! He was asleep by himself for 10.5 hours!) I went in once and he clearly didn't want me in there and was pushing me away so I left him to it again at 6.15am and he fell asleep happily.
Woke for good at 7.45am.

So! There you go. Some people might think it is unkind, but if you saw how quickly he is soothed once we go in, he really is totally fine. Also, he is happier during the day and I am too, since we are both getting more and more interrupted sleep! More sleep will make him be able to take in more around him, me function better too... wahoo! I can highly recommend, especially since the nights were so interrupted anyway it is not really any worse! Ta-da. Here goes Night 8!