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We are still living in limbo at the moment – it’s over a week since we sold and moved out of our old house in Scotland but we haven’t yet got the keys to our new house. If all goes according to plan we’ll get them later today but then unfortunately it’s going to be another week before the removals company can deliver all our stuff that they’ve got in storage. So until then we’ll still be staying with my parents and hopefully getting some decorating done and giving the place a good clean before we move in.
We’ve been trying to keep the boys occupied while we’ve been staying here and getting out somewhere every day. At the end of last week we went up to Cumbria to meet up with Barry’s parents for lunch and a bit of a walk along the coast. Toby had great fun climbing on the rocks and of course found himself a stick. I’m not sure what he was doing here though; casting a spell maybe?
It’s been hard work keeping a constant eye on Gabe this last week – there’s so much of our stuff everywhere at the moment and of course he want’s to get into everything. His absolutely favourite thing seems to be this crate that we brought with us – it’s full of the kids’ food, snacks and plastic plates and bowls and he just loves pulling everything out. We’ve ended up with quite a lot of broken breadsticks and crushed biscuits this week! This isn’t perhaps the best photo, but I love that it shows what a cheeky monkey Gabe is becoming, or has already become!
The lovely Donna who hosts Living Arrows is on holiday next week and so has asked me to host the linky for her – please do stop by and link up and hopefully I’ll have some exciting pictures in the new house by then!
OK, so this post is mega-late this week because we’re in the middle of moving house, we’re living with my parents, the boys seem to be tag teaming us with their not sleeping, it’s stupidly hot and I packed hardly any summer clothes, and…..just arrgghh!!
Anyway, here’s some pictures of Toby and Gabe looking cute. Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon!
This is going to be a very short post today – we are in the midst of house moving chaos and today is Toby’s third birthday! Here he is earlier in the week, actually doing a nice smile for the camera for once – he’s taken to either sticking his tongue out or doing a massive cheesy grin whenever I try and take his picture lately so this one makes a change.
And this week Gabe gave us cause to get another milestone card out…
He’s been saying ‘a-da’ for a week or two now but this week it definitely turned into ‘Da-da’. It’s still just a sound to him though – it’s not like he is actually referring to his daddy when he says it!
By next week’s Living Arrows post we will have moved out of our house in Scotland and will be temporarily living with my parents in Blackpool. All our stuff will be in storage until we get into our new house which is supposed to be happening a week later but that’s not looking to likely at the moment. Hopefully my already somewhat erratic blogging will not be too disrupted!
I’m so tired at the moment (when will Gabe realise that the day does not start at 4:30 am?) that I’m struggling to remember what we’ve been up to since last week. Barry has finished work now in readiness for our move so having him to share the early mornings is helping, but I still just feel permanently knackered.
Last week my mum and dad came up for a flying visit and took a trailer and car full of our stuff back to their house so we’ve got a bit of space in our garage to try and sort out more of our stuff. Before they left we went out for lunch and Toby was very pleased to be back at the cafe with the dragon…
Gabe has been struggling with his teeth again this week but one of the next bottom ones has finally cut through and hopefully the other side isn’t far behind. He’s still managed the odd smile though…
I can’t believe we are half way through the year already! I’m late again with my Living Arrows post this week – must try harder!
At the weekend I was down in London for #BML16 and I had a brilliant time. Barry, it would be fair to say, didn’t enjoy my time away so much as Gabe went into full on teething monster mode on Sunday. His teeth still aren’t through but he’s calmed down a bit now at least. He just wants to be constantly on the move at the moment. I was trying to take a few pictures of him the other day but he just kept crawling right up to the camera. I love this shot I managed to get though… (you can see one of his chicken pox scars right in the middle of his forehead – poor bear!)
Toby, by all accounts, was an absolute superstar while I was away. He can be a bit of a pain sometimes when I’m around and is always whining for me to do everything for him. ‘No, mummy do it’ is a very familiar refrain in our house, but he was really good and didn’t complain about only having daddy for the weekend at all.
He was certainly pleased with some of the treats that came home in my goody bag anyway! Here he is ready for bed with his flower garland and Mim Mim toy – and of course his outfit wouldn’t be complete without his four muslins and his sunglasses!
It’s been a busy week of house moving stress and you’d think for once the universe would give us a break…but no.
I don’t think Gabe is actually ill this week but he’s possible teething again and we’ve had a weekend of hourly wake ups through the night and then getting up for the day before 5 am. I seriously hope he improves before I go away to Britmums Live next weekend or poor Barry is really going to suffer! Toby has stopped waking up crying for me in the night at least – I have no idea what that was about but I’m glad it’s stopped.
The one bonus of this week is that both both boys have been having some extra time at nursery so I can get house moving admin done and I can’t lie, it’s been bliss to have a few hours peace and quiet!
Gabe is all about the standing up nowadays, the trouble is he’s not worked out how to sit back down again yet (safely at least) so after standing for a while he just starts shouting until someone comes to rescue him…and then immediately just pulls himself up again! He was very proud of himself for standing up under the table the other day though.
Toby is at such a brilliant age at the moment – he’s really starting to get into imaginative play and he’s finally embraced the super hero cape and mask I got him for Christmas (which he refused to wear at the time). He loves to put it on and zoom around the house shouting ‘Super T – to the rescue’! This picture isn’t quite in focus but I love it anyway…
I think you people are going to start thinking I’m making things up but Gabe was ill again this week! This time it was a stomach bug (I think) – he had a bit of a temperature so I was giving him some Nurofen after his tea, he choked on it and threw up all over himself. The night was OK and I thought that was the end of it but the next day he was sick five more times! He was very sleepy and snuggly all day too which isn’t really like him either. Anyway, by bedtime he wouldn’t go to sleep without a bottle so we risked it. He kept it down, and the ones overnight and by the next day he seemed fully recovered. So I don’t now what it was but at least it was over quickly and he’s actually been pretty cheery since then.
Barry was away this weekend, visiting friends down in Manchester so I had both boys by myself overnight for the first time. It actually didn’t go to badly apart from that by Sunday afternoon I was going a bit insane after being constantly climbed on and sat on for pretty much 48 hours solid!
On Saturday we went out to a cafe for a bit of a break (and so I could get Gabe to have a car nap). This cafe has a little play area with some toys and colouring things. There were a few other kids playing too and for once Toby didn’t do too badly with sharing – there’s this big dragon toy which is basically the only thing most of the kids want to play with but Toby did well to let another little boy have a turn without too much of a fuss. I may have distracted him with chocolate cake, but whatever works right?
Gabe was reasonably well behaved too – although I did have to take him out of the highchair after a few minutes has he was rivalling Houdini with his bid to escape! He enjoyed playing with this bead toy for a bit though. He is actually starting to play with toys now and so it’s getting a bit easier to distract him, for a few minutes at least…
It’s been a fairly quiet week for us by all accounts. Gabe is mostly recovered from his chicken pox (although his sleep is still all over the place) and Toby has been, well, a toddler.
Gabe is really a pro-crawler now, he is literally getting everywhere and into everything. This week he has also started pulling himself up on the furniture. He’s pretty confident with kneeling up but has also managed to pull himself onto his feet a few times too. I’m really hoping that as he can move more and be more independent he will start being a bit more content to explore by himself and entertain himself. At the moment if you are holding him he is desperate to get down and sometimes even almost dives out of your arms, but if you put him down he starts crying again after a few minutes. And quite frankly it’s driving me bonkers!
Toby has been spending a lot of time outside, both at home and at nursery, in this lovely sunshine we’ve been having. Mostly he’s been loving it but it seems to be totally exhausting for him so we’ve had a few tired meltdowns this last week too. Generally though he’s still just his usual cheery self…
If you read Gabe’s nine month update you’ll know he had got the chicken pox last week but only had a few spots. I was hoping it was going to be a mild case but by Friday he was covered and we had a couple of really bad days, and nights with him where Barry did lots of pushing him round the houses in the buggy and nobody got very much sleep.
Thankfully his spots seem to be all crusted over now and although he looks a mess he’s feeling much better. Last night he even managed to sleep from 6:30pm to 7am and only woke up once for milk at midnight then went straight back to sleep. Fingers crossed his scabs heal quickly and don’t cause him too much trouble…
And Toby is still just being Toby. He’s been really good when we’ve had to spend all our time looking after Gabe and hasn’t really complained at all.
His hair had been getting really long again the last few weeks and had got to the point where he could hardly see! I usually cut it while he’s stood in the bath but he’s always distracted by toys and getting him to stand still is a nightmare…leading to some very wonky haircuts! I decided I would try and actually cut it properly this time, I even got a hairdressing cape and some of those clips that hairdressers use to keep some sections out of the way.
Toby was really good and just sat still watching the Octonauts on my Kindle while I did it. I actually cut quite a lot off the back this time because it was getting a bit ridiculous (and always full of knots). The front still isn’t quite even but overall I’m pretty pleased with my efforts this time. And I might be biased but I reckon Toby looks awesome with his new haircut!
Well, despite the pox we made it to Center Parcs and we had a brilliant week! We couldn’t do much the first day or so as Toby’s spots hadn’t completely crusted over but it didn’t really matter. We made sure we did plenty of activities in the rest of the week, and ate lots of delicious food too. I’ll be writing more about what we got up to in some other posts but safe to say we had a great time and I would definitely recommend Center Parcs to anyone looking for a family holiday.
This week’s Living Arrows photos are a couple from while we were away. Toby was a trooper throughout his week of chicken pox, he hardly complained at all, and he still slept really well which was a relief. It was a tiring week away for him though (and would have been even without recovering from illness) and we had a few meltdown moments but on the whole he just enjoyed the whole experience. It was fab to see him trying things he wouldn’t normally do and the big smiles on his face when he did them.
Gabe spent quite a lot of his holiday napping and we did have disturbed nights from him too. He loved exploring the lodge though, his commando crawling is really getting him everywhere he wants to go now…and lots of places we don’t want him to go! He’s so determined, but still gets frustrated when he can’t do something he wants to. Just look at him though – I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s properly crawling and pulling himself up, and then nothing will be safe!
