21 June , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

Living Arrows 25/52 (2016)

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…

15 June , 201614 June , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

Siblings // Toby and Gabe in June

This is going to be a very short post this month. If I’m really honest, with the chicken pox and everything else we’ve been dealing with in the month since my last Siblings project post there hasn’t been a huge amount of sibling love going on in our house. It’s been more about sibling competition for mummy’s attention and I think a bit of jealousy creeping in from Toby because I’ve had to spend so much time looking after poorly Gabe.

I haven’t even got any proper (well, posed) photos of Toby and Gabe together this month but I didn’t want to miss a post, and I thought this was a chance to record what my boys’ sibling relationship is really like at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been some moments of affection. Like in this picture when Toby was trying to help Gabe get out from under the chair (I think!) even though he was perfectly capable of doing it by himself.

Toby is quite tolerant of Gabe for the most part – even when he insists on grabbing Toby’s hair….still! I’m really hoping he’s going to grow out of this grabby phase soon.

And Gabe just wants to be wherever Toby is, doing whatever he’s doing, which of course isn’t always possible at the moment. Yesterday, Toby even resorted to shutting himself in Gabe’s playpen so he could get away from him. Actually, maybe I should try that one more often….

13 June , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

Living Arrows 24/52 (2016)

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…

6 June , 2016 - Sarah 3 Comments

Living Arrows 23/52 (2016)

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…

31 May , 201621 December , 2017 - Sarah 1 Comment

Me & Mine // A Family Portrait (May 2016)

It’s a bit late in the day but I am at least managing to publish this month’s Me & Mine post on the last day of the month. It’s been another month of ups and downs for us. There has been even more illness with Barry and the boys all having a stomach bug, and then Toby and Gabe have both had chicken pox too. There have been quite a lot of tears (a lot of them from me!) and not a lot of sleep. But amongst all the illness we also had a lovely holiday at Center Parcs, and sold our house!

That last one is a very exciting bit of news – after 13 years in Scotland, 5 of them living in this house with Barry, we are moving back to the north west of England to live nearer both sets of parents. It’s all very exciting, but also very stressful. Although we’ve sold our house and our buyers want to move in at the end of the first week of July we haven’t bought anywhere yet! It looks like we might be moving in with my mum and dad for a few weeks this summer! Fingers crossed it will all work out one way or another.

Anyway, this month’s photos were taken during our holiday at Center Parcs. We got a few funny looks from people walking past as we balanced the camera on a bin and Barry dashed back to get in the shot before the timer went off. I do like this month’s picture though – we’re even all looking at the camera!

And I just wanted to include this one too – because although we’re not all looking at the camera on this one I love our happy faces…

31 May , 201631 May , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

Living Arrows 22/52 (2016)

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!

23 May , 201622 May , 2016 - Sarah 11 Comments

Living Arrows 21/52 (2016)

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!

16 May , 201615 May , 2016 - Sarah 10 Comments

Living Arrows 20/52 (2016)

If you read this post you’ll know we’ve been having a pretty rubbish time of things recently. However, as I write this Gabe has finally got over his stomach bug or teething or whatever it was that was making his nappies so awful. The last couple of nights he’s actually slept reasonably well, for him, and even though he had me up at 5:30 am when he’s this cute you don’t mind too much. Of course now we’re just waiting to see how long it is before the chicken pox shows up but at least we might manage a few days without too much grumpiness.

And as for Toby; he is coping remarkably well with his chicken pox although thankfully I don’t think he has too bad a case. He is a bit up and down, one minute he’s tired and lying in front of the TV and the next he’s charging around the house, like when I grabbed this shot.

A lot of his spots have crusted over now so I’m just hoping the rest of them do soon so he can at least enjoy a couple of days of our holiday at Center Parcs. And just cross your fingers that Gabe doesn’t show any symptoms until after we’re home!

9 May , 20168 May , 2016 - Sarah 11 Comments

Living Arrows 19/52 (2016)

We have, at last, all been relatively well this week (well, at least after Barry recovered from the bug that Toby had the week before). Nobody has got a cold for, I think, the first time since about February!

Gabe is still teething though and he has been having the most horrific teething poos ever – nearly every one leaks out of his nappy and requires a full change of clothes. The one at 2 am the other night that went right through to his sleeping bag was a real treat! He’s been OK in himself though – off his food a bit but I can’t say I blame him. I’m just hoping these next teeth come soon and we can all have a break.

I haven’t had the big camera out all this week though so both Living Arrows photos are iPhone snaps – I took this one of Gabe when I was pushing him up to the shop. He isn’t the easiest of babies sometimes but when he looks at you like this it does make all the sleepless nights worthwhile.

And I took this picture of Toby and his daddy at bedtime the other night. Toby has got really into his books in the last few months and we always have a bedtime story (or three!). Usually we end up reading the same stories over and over again for a few weeks and then he’ll have a change of heart and move onto something else, but the other night he chose a Noddy book for his daddy to read. This book actually belonged to me and my brother when we were little and I’ve had it (along without about six other Noddy books) for years, ever since I left home I think. I don’t know if you’ve ever read a Noddy book but they’re quite long so he’s been having one chapter a night. I wasn’t sure if he’d have the patience to sit through a longer story but he seems to be enjoying it…and I just love watching my lovely husband and my biggest boy enjoying time together.

3 May , 2016 - Sarah 3 Comments

Living Arrows 18/52 (2016)

I’m a bit late with this week’s post after a busy weekend away at Blog On in Manchester. Toby had a sickness bug at the end of last week but he seems mostly recovered now. Luckily Gabe seems to have mostly avoided it, but Barry is currently in bed feeling awful – I’m just hoping I’m not next in line!

These photos were taken last week before the bug struck…

Gabe is mostly loving his food (when he’s not feeling a bit poorly) and I think you can see how much he had enjoyed his spaghetti bolognese.

And although Toby perhaps spends a bit too much time on the tablet some days I love how much he focuses and concentrates on it. I think he was reading a Clangers story on the CBeebies Storytime app here.

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