My month in numbers March 2014

I finally wrote my entry and clicked off to edit a photo and lost the whole thing!! Lesson learned!

A quick rewrite!

22 days late with my march summary - will explain in April!

100 Club - a cool venue to see Paul's band and celebrate my baby brother turning 40 :). And nice to have someone to dance with thank you Gerard x

1 extension started and 2 very happy children who got to ride the digger in the first week!

This has been a plan for so long that it is strange to see the work finally start, they are going so fast that we moved out at the end of March to let the builders start knocking things down!

60 books read in the bbc books to read list, and a shameless chance to show off on Facebook as I have done anything cool!!  

I have actually read 3 of the books in French although I did finish Germinal in English or I would still be reading it!  

2 crafty challenge days before W finished nursery where I got to play with watercolour and all the goodies we bought at the craft show from the start of the month!  Lots of fun with crafty friends and lots of pages made instead of hoarding supplies :) this was the picture I was editing and who knows where those numbers came from!!  

My month in numbers is the brilliant idea of Julie Kirk check out her blog at: http://notesonpaper.blogspot.co.uk

Goodbye Mr Burp!

It feels very strange to be waking up without Mr Burp to look after today.  W has been very good and is cross and grumpy today which is a an excellent sign.  We are back in the same bed with the same view we have had for our last three stays and I am hoping this is the last time but it will be strange to have left this stage behind.  Now we are just waiting for a poo to show that the reconnected plumbing works ... 

Week 1 of our grand design!

Our grand design project has finally started.  The builders turned up at 7.45 on Monday 17th and by the time we were setting off for school most of the front garden and patio were gone!  They also let William ride the JCB and moved the plants I wanted to keep :) 

Foundations dug on day two and by the end of the week the brickwork was well underway.  

And they let Madeleine have a go on the digger too before it went back!  Two very happy children :) 

What will we see next week I wonder?  Watch this space...

Saved from the digger :)

I cannot believe how fast this first bit of building is going!  I am sure it will slow down and become very stressful in a grand designs fashion but at the moment they are making huge changed everyday and let W ride on the digger so everyone is happy :) 

My month in numbers February 2014

Quite a lot to pack in this month despite the missing days!  I did the usual thing of thinking there wasn't much to say then went back over my diary and Facebook (is that sad?!) and realised we have done loads this month. 

XX times - not a typo I really can't count how many times this month we have pretended to be Jenny Jones!  We spent a few days in Plymouth last month visiting family and heard first hand about her preparation from her brother (he is married to my cousin!) and so ever every excited about seeing Penny's aunty in the Olympics.  We watched her qualify and then win a medal and were SO excited and pleased.  She is a real inspiration and the children have perfected their slope style technique for the scooter which we do all the way down the cycle path!

1 mortgage secured for our extension!  Who knew borrowing money that was ours on paper would  be so time consuming?!  After sending almost every piece of paper in the house to the mortgage company it is all done and the builders start in mid march, eek!  We are really excited about transforming our home and making it a place we can stay for a lot longer.  Now we have drawings and an idea what it will be like I am looking forward to the new spaces and most of all being able to have a whole other family to visit at once!

So ready for the new rooms at our crafty meet this month I made 2 canvasses using my 30+ rolls of washi tape! a pile of stencils and lots of bits from home.  It was really fun to work on something so free form and it is totally my style with loads of colour and texture.  All we need now is a wall to hang them on... Maybe the family space can be a crafty space?!

11 nights we had Rocky and Shelley to stay with us and they had fun, well as much fun as you can tell two snails are having!  We fed them cucumber and apple, gave them a bath and watched them move VERY slowly around their tank!  The nice bit was how excited the children were to have the responsibility of looking after them, and if you are going to have a class pet to stay Giant African Land Snails are probably the least hassle :) 

3 lovely half term outings, a morning at the cinema watching Tinkerbell and the pirate fairy, W was enthralled, M more interested in her pick and mix!  Then a day at soft play with cousins,  lots of playing, 2 canvasses painted and nearly lunch if only wee could have found a café!  Finally M and I had an amazing day in London,  we saw street performers by the bucketload - a man on a bed of nails, another on an 8ft unicycle and lots of pretend statues.  It is so nice to visit somewhere I know well and see it through someone else's eyes in a new way.  I was super proud when we visited the national gallery and looked at art we liked, we talked about the colour and texture of the Van Gogh's and bought loads of stuff in the shop!  Then it was off to Westminster Abbey which could have been a disaster but they had an amazing kids trail and we spent ages checking out the kings and queens tombs, learning about the coronation and even got in to see Edward the Confessor's shrine, pushed along by the promise of a chocolate coin at the end - and it was worth it the coin was huge!

And finally,  24 years - how long I have known my lovely friend Kate :) who could have known that a chance meeting on a university visit day would have turned into such an important and long lasting friendship. This month we had a girls Saturday night out, dinner and then watching Jack Whitehall alongside some celebs!  Us being us we were gossiping and drinking wine and only realised something was going on when we realised everyone was looking at us, well not at us, past us to Frankie Lampard, Alex One Show and Holly Willobooby!  I never cease to be amazed at how rude people can be, they must have posed for about 100 pictures on people's phones and in the end had to ask people to leave them alone to watch the show!  We had a great time though and then caught up over several bottles of wine and 16 chocolates (v precisely counted by the children the next morning!).   

My month in numbers is the brilliant memory keeping idea of Julie Kirk, find out more at http://notesonpaper.blogspot.co.uk/p/months-in-numbers.html

Huh! Digger time!

Just a quick update to share, the diggers are coming!  Only two weeks until the builders come to start our extension and I get a real job for my gap year :) 

It is really exciting to think that in just a few months (well about 5!) we will have our new home, be able to entertain and have overnight guests.  I can now start to think about what we can put inside and what it will look like.

Now we just need to pack up and decide where we are going to stand for the weekly progress photos :) 

My month in numbers January 2014

The communal count 

Number of new things tried 2 - I tried making notes for month in numbers but I still wasn't quicker! (I have also wasted 5 days trying to get the photos off our camera from G's 40th but was thwarted but our super duper security software).  We have also started a cleaning routine which is giving us a much nicer, cleaner house :) while it is working well for me W is not so sure, last week he said, "I don't like Tuesday and Friday because of preschool, I don't like Wednesday because of swimming and I don't like Monday because I don't like dusting!" I have looked at lots of planners and ideas for organising 2014 on blogs, it is funny because although I would like a new planner and love the look of some of them I work on an academic year and September is my month for new diaries and new resolutions.

Bread - a new thing for us is not eating so much bread in our house so we only buy little loaves for the children.  They cost 80p :) 

My numbers..

20+ the number of times I have pulled the sofa out to find the marbles for the marble run W got for Christmas.  It is a really cool toy and we have had lots of fun building towers and runs but I am starting to wonder if it was a good idea for Santa to bring marbles to a house with wooden floors!  "Watch out runaway marble!" is the soundtrack to my days.

8 new families we met at our HD family day in January, it was so nice to meet other people in real life that are experiencing the same things we are living through.  It was lovely to see W meeting another child with a Mr Burp and also seeing how well the older children coped.  We are hoping to have a longer family day in the summer somewhere on the coast as we are all treated in Southampton.  It was so special to do something nice and not medical connected with HD.

17 hours late - our online shopping delivery!  Waitrose had a January promotion and were offering a free bottle of champagne for each online delivery, I think this was too much for our local branch and we waited a LONG time for our food!  I was so cross but when the guy came to deliver he was really young and everyone had been shouting at him so I just felt sorry for him and couldn't be angry at all!  We ended up with lots of voucher for another shop and the champagne so it worked out ok in the end.

Something with 3 noughts! The final bill for Gerard's AMAZING 40th birthday party.  We have been to lots of 40ths in the last few years and the incredible thing is they have all been totally different and all fabulous in their own way.  G had arranged a really sophisticated dinner in a lovely hotel, we had a private dining room overlooking the Thames and delicious food matched to perfect wines by the sommelier.  We had a very raucous family end of the table which ended up with Paul and Kim singing Meatloaf in the bar!  

My month in numbers is the brilliant idea of Julie Kirk, find out more on her blog notes on paper.