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March 2005 part 6 - Toddling towards summer!

551 replies

leogaela · 20/04/2006 13:16

And her it is!

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busywizzy · 08/10/2006 18:39

I had a lovely lie-in this morning as Harrison and Hannah both decided to sleep in until 8.30 (Hannah) and 9am (Harri). What bliss. The only thing was that DH had agreed to get up with the children and let me sleep in so I felt a bit cheated, having got up at 6.30am yesterday to let DH sleep in.

Unfortunately, when we came downstairs, one of the new radiators DH fitted yesterday had leaked during the night, through the light fitting into the front room below and the whole room was flooded DH has spent all day trying to sort it all out so he isn't in the best of moods.

To keep out of the way, I took the children shopping, inspired by talk of books. I bought a few for Harri and a lovely poem book for Hannah. She's doing her Poetry Vanguard in a month so she has to learn two poems - one by Robert Louis Stevenson and another by a different poet of equal difficulty. She's picked a poem by A A Milne called 'Us Two' that has six verses about Winnie the Pooh and his shadow (at least I think that's what it's about) so now I have to listen to her reciting that every night as well as homework, choir songs for a concert she's in soon and recorder practise. Who'd be a parent ?????

I also got Harri some wellies and he loves them

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend.

Pidge · 08/10/2006 20:27

busywizzy - what a bore with the radiator - I would have been mad at it intruding on my weekend.

Leo - love the pic of Niklas trashing the flowers. And the one with the sweetcorn is amazing - he's beautiful!

We've had a frantic weekend - lunch with friends yesterday, my bro for supper here in the evening, lunch with friends and their new baby today. I was billeted to make two different puddings for each lunch. Lots of lovely socialising.

Iris has just the learned the word 'mess' and rather embarrassingly could be found going round our various friends' houses saying "mama, look, mess"!

UMum - I hope you know what you're doing. I wouldn't do anything to risk a potentially longer separation from your daughter. I can't imagine being apart from my kids for so long.

JoPG · 09/10/2006 13:02

Ooo, Pidge, what puds did you make? I need some inspiration, I've been making apple crumble (my favourite) for a few weeks now and I think everybody else is getting a bit fed up with it! Need to use up those apples somehow though!

Ethan had is first sleepover at the weekend, his friend stayed at ours. DH though I was mad to offer, but in fact they were both sound asleep by 8.30pm and didn't wake up until 7am! Not exactly party animals.

Had a quiet day yesterday. Took Ethan and Freya to the park in the morning. Ethan was whizzing around on his bike, and Freya pottered round and had a lovely time. Great weather, felt really warm after running around after them both!

Pidge · 09/10/2006 15:20

Hi Jo! As you may recall I am a pudding obsessive! The first one I made was Nigella's chocolate brownie. I'm forced to replace the walnuts (as I'm allergic to them) so bunged in white chocolate instead, which means the whole thing contains 700g of chocolate, 6 eggs, 375g butter, 500g sugar!!! Is that possibly the world's unhealthiest pudding? In my defence I ran 12 miles before having my portion on Saturday, and half of it was gifted to our friends with 3 kids and the other half was sort of birthday present to my brother.

The other pud I made was (also Nigella) pumpkin cheesecake. Fantastically easy and utterly delicious. She even recommends using pumpkin puree in a jar.

Just spent this morning at Battersea Park Zoo with the kids again. They love it there.

CristinaTheAstonishing · 09/10/2006 22:45

Ooh, don't talk about puddings! It was DH's birthday yesterday (35) and we've had a week of low-level but high-fat celebrating. I dread going to Weight Watchers tomorrow and seeing the damage. I'd lost 12 lbs over 4 weeks, I was doing so well...

JoPG · 10/10/2006 11:59

Cristina - lol at low key, high fat celebration, sounds like just my kind of thing!

Pidge - I love Nigella's brownies. I tend to make them with pecans, walnuts etc as i am ok with nuts, but the addition of white choc sounds good. Have been invited to a Halloween party so might offer to make the pumpkin cheesecake for that.

Spent last night going through old photographs. It is my mum's 60th in December and I want to make a photo album for her. Was cringing at the 80s hairdos, and awful clothes! It was a very nostalgic night!

Pidge · 10/10/2006 14:38

Cristina - if it's any consolation I'm eating a particularly sour apple at the moment

Jo - the friends I cooked the cheesecake for have already requested another one for a weekend away we're going on with them and a bunch of other friends. It's great and really easy. Don't know if supermarkets sell jars of pumpkin puree - we have this brilliant local Indian shop which has it.

Next time I make the brownies I'm going to try a mix of white choc and roasted hazlenut pieces, or maybe even macadamias. Pecans are out - they have the same effect as walnuts on me unfortunately.

ukrainianmum · 10/10/2006 19:46

Hello ladies!!!

You graciously moved from babies to cakes.And it appeared to be that i am not the best mum-i dont bake cakes or cookies.But i have reasons,genuine ones!1)Ksenia doesnt eat or like any of those.2)They give you so much weight.And 3)There a shop near us kind of bakery where they bake heavenly made cakes and etc etc etc so no woman in nearby homes bakes anything.
And i found a great way to lose weight-it is a massage.Full body about 1,5 hours of pleasure and it takes away a size or even more.Minimum of ten sessions.

Christina-Ukraine is not a part of EU and they even didnt start the discussion about it.Politcians say maybe 7-10 years before we join.

Ladies,i know that the desicion i made maybe not the right one.But at the moment it seems to be the only way.And beleve me i am not the fan of illegal immigrants at all.That is why i left UK in the first place coz i did not want to be there illegal and plus i had a baby and i could not risk her life.The only thing i know is that Ksenia is completely safe here with my parents and they are doing a great job looking after her.

I was trying to send a pictures to the photobucket and after long time of torturing my PC it said UPLOADING ERROR.So no new fotos of Ksenia.

Jo-i had a nostalgic night with my friends last thursday.Had a great time at night club where 4 of us were the oldest.We felt like grandmas but we are just 27.The funny thing was the the dj put 3 times a song of very famous boysbend in end of 80s and we are like mad cows were dancing and mouthering the words.The crowd of only young people were shoked and looked at us...Anyway we had a lot of time.And around 3 o clock am we were looking at the fotos from school life.Same.Crazy hairdoos and strange clothes and the worst the make up.And after it took me 3 days to rcover.

I amm off to bed now.Sweet dreams

busywizzy · 10/10/2006 23:24

Cristina, 12lbs in 4 weeks is fantastic. I think you more than deserve a high fat birthday celebration.

Jo, my dad was 60 this year too and I made him an album on line, that then comes printed back as a book. I did it here in the 'Make a PhotoBook' section and he absolutely loved it. It was so easy too - I'm not techy at all so if I can manage it, then it must be dead simple. The longest bit was downloading all the photos I wanted to use but once that was done, hey presto

Pidge, as ever I'm humbled by your culinary skills. I made pizza with Hannah at the weekend but I'm not sure that my cooking skills were exactly put to the test

Harrison has been poorly the last few days - he slept until 9am on Sunday morning, was really tired by midday and was in bed by 7pm as usual. He then woke up crying at about 10.30pm which he never, ever does. I went up to see him and he sitting up in his cot covered head to toe in sick (sorry). He'd obviously been sick in his sleep and had rolled around in it before managing to sit himself up. We stripped his bed, cleaned him up and I rocked him back off to sleep. Put him back in his cot at which point, he was sick again

Slept until 8.00am yesterday morning, went back to bed at midday and slept for 3 hours. Seemed back to his cheery self when he woke, although hasn't eaten much since. Can't say the same for our poor washing machine!!

busywizzy · 10/10/2006 23:28

Forgot to say that I bought Harri his first pair of wellies at the weekend - and he loooooooooves them Too much really as having tramped around in the wet garden all day in them, he then had a right fit and ran away when I tried to take them off. DH was not impressed with the trail of mud through the kitchen!

leogaela · 11/10/2006 09:06

what is it with these children and their welly boots!!!!

Busy, glad to hear that Harrison's sickness past by quickly.

I made desert the other day - very rare occassion but we got hundreds of apples from dh's parents so i had to do something - I an apple thing from Rick Stein's French Odyssey. It was delicious. You cook the halved apples (round bottoms down) in sugar and butter so it becomes caramel, then put puff pastry (which i didn't make) over the top of it and stick it in the oven. To serve it turn it all over so the pastry is underneath. I put a bit too much sugar in so parts of it were like toffee apple, but it was really delicious.... mmmm!

Umum - Good luck and take care of yourself whatever you decide to do. I know you haven't taken your decisions to leave Ksenia lightly.
How is Ksenia's cough and chest? Is she better?

Did I mention that we went to the zoo on Monday, Niklas was absolutely fascinated by the elephants! I was surprised as I thought it would be the monkeys he would like best.

Lots of his English words are now being replaced by German words , he says Heiss (Dei) in stead of hot (Da) and says Tchuss instead of bye bye! His English vocabulary is still better than the German but I can see its going to be a lot of work to avoid the English being overtaken too much by the German too early.

I wonder what happened to AndyJ, I hope we didn't scare her off !

OP posts:
Pidge · 11/10/2006 15:18

LOL with the welly boot obsession. Iris has it too! Though she also looks hysterical with them on, as she can't really walk properly, she waddles about furiously, rocking from side to side.

She has just developed this little chant, whenever I mention the playground she sings "I wanna go to the wees" (wees = swings) which she performs over and over again in a little up and down scale! Anyway, this morning at breakfast, she applied it to her childminder Elaine, she sat there chewing her porridge singing "I wanna go to Elaine" over and over again. I can't tell you how smiley that made me as I jumped on my bike to come to work!

Leo - love the sound of your caramelly-appley pudding. And what an advantage Niklas will be at being bilingual. Get those languages into him whilst is brain is in linguistic-sponge mode, I say!

ukrainianmum · 11/10/2006 19:34

Ha,we had a parsel from my dh today.And guess what there were wellies and a rain coat and a rain trousers.There no wellies sold here in ukraine.Dont know why.But we have very nice sunny autumn so i think that is why.But with Ksenia it is really hard to get used to new clothes.Forst she plays with it for couple of daus and ones she established that this thing belongs to her the she will wear it.Last week we bought all new clothes for winter.It was a torture to try them on at the shops.I hope the rains will come and Ksenia will have a chance to wear her new clothes.

She is still sick but with different sickness.On friday the doctor said that we are 100% healthy.Her chest was clear no cough.And saturday morning Ksenia had a fever again and now is the throat.And running nose.not even running as stuffed.I am pulling my brains out trying to find the best medicine for her but nothing works.The worst is at night she can barely breath and she vomits for few times at night.And by day she is happy-happy child.

Pidge-really surprised that Iris can talk in sentenses.What a smart little girl.Ksenia is repeating like a monkey or parrot after us.But the other day my dad said something about mosquitos and Ksenia said "komar" which is a mosquito in russian and she clapped her hands.I was like how she knows what to do with these little creatures.So i guess there is a lot just waiting to come out and show all of us what they are made of.

Oh, she is coughing in her sleep again.I better get going coz this may end in vomiting again.

ukrainianmum · 11/10/2006 19:56

Oh, i want to ask coz i am not sure.My close friend is making a very stunning jewellery using swarowsky crystals and murano glass.Can i type a web site address so you can all have a look and maybe tell your friends about it.Would not it be an advertising and is it allowed here?

Ksenia is a sleep.Just a little cough.Today for the first time in her life after a day nap Ksenia didnot cry she just came to me to the kitchen and i was cooking dinner at the time and of course dii not expect her at all.when i turned around i swa two beautiful eyes and a happy smile but my heart was about to stop and jump out at the same time.And Ksenia found it really funny to scare me like this.

Busy-how is Harrison?feeling better?

Leo-how is the bump?Dancing or not yet?Do you speek german.I actually dont know are you english native speaker or maybe you are a spy?I studied German for 3! years but dont remember anything.It was long time ago.

JoPG · 11/10/2006 20:14

Poor Ksenia and Harrison, hope they are both back to full fitness soon.

Right, have checked out pumpkin cheesecake recipe and think I will try it out at the weekend. I can buy the canned pumpkin in Waitrose, so that is not a problem. Bit worried about wrapping the tin in foil, sounds a bit of a faff, and if I get it wrong then the whole think will leak and be ruined! Will give it a go though.

popsycal · 11/10/2006 20:20

helllloooooooooooooooooooo

JoPG · 11/10/2006 20:44

hellllooooooo to you toooooo, popsycal!

jambot · 12/10/2006 05:51

How's the sleeping saga Popsy?

Pidge · 12/10/2006 12:47

JoPG - I was worried about the water seeping in but it does seem ok. I did a few layers of clingfilm, and then a double layer of foil as she suggests. The rest of it is so easy. The only other thing I would say is that the cheesecake mix doesn't all fit in my foodprocessor (she has one of those glamorous kitchen aid things!), so I just do it in a big bowl with a hand whisk. That also saves you washing up the foodprocessor bowl etc having used it to make the biscuit base. Yum, yum, yum. Must peruse my recipe books this evening to decide on my weekend pudding choice.

Good to 'see' you popsycal!! How's Harry doing.

busywizzy · 12/10/2006 20:21

Hello everyone, especially Popsy - good to hear from you and hope all is well and that sleep is happening in your household finally

Harrison is completely better so I don't know what that was all about. Sorry to hear Kesenia is poorly again UMum, it must be so worrying for you that she's poorly on and off with the doctors unable to tell you what's wrong. Hope she gets better soon.

Pidge, to say I'm seriously impressed by Iris and her speech is the understatement of all time. Harrison chatters away in his own language all day and I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about most of the time. As well as the usual words (mummy, daddy etc), he calls Hannah 'Harri', he says 'get down' and 'sit up', he's very good at saying 'sorry' as he has to say it so often to Hannah, he can say 'story' when he brings me (yet another) book and that's about it. He's quite good at animal noises but can't actually say what they are so if you point to a dog and say what's that, he says 'woof'. I have to say though that if prizes were given out for emptying cupboards and drawers and making the biggest mess in the world, he'd win hands down. Oh well, each child has their own talent

Leo, how's the bump?

Pidge · 12/10/2006 20:47

busy - I'm pretty freaked out by Iris's talking myself - we thought dd1 was linguistically precocious! Mind you, bear in mind that her latest sentence came out as "I-onna-go-ona-wees" so you do have to be her parents to understand what she's banging on about! And she gets mad if you don't get her gist. This evening she kept saying something like "mama, da warm", and I said to dp "what's this 'warm' business" and Iris just started crying and ranting, as if to say, 'you idiots, can't you get the message'.

jambot · 12/10/2006 21:27

Well, I'm convinced that Lauren is secretly being schooled in Martian during the night, as her language is totally out of this world!! She honestly doesn't say anything other than 'dere' and the occasional 'mama' , 'dada' and 'go'. But she doesn't shut up all day long, gabbling in enormous long sentences, and then promptly repeating them exactly again when she sees me looking flumoxed. She looks at me as if to say "are you stupid or something"?
I must actually tape it as it really is very cute.
I have a great apple cake recipe I must let you have Leo.
How's that tummy coming? You're not filling us in much on the growth of the bump! Have you decided about whether you'll find out the sexes or not? Tx for FINALLY posting pics of Niklas. He is lovely.
Glad Harrison is better. Lauren hasn't had a tummy bug yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
Hope Ksenia is feeling better Umum.

jambot · 12/10/2006 21:33

Wonder how Tamula is doing. She must be due with No2 soon.
Can someone put us onto a new thread? We've been toddling towards Summer for months and your Winter's about to hit!

leogaela · 13/10/2006 08:51

I think Tamula's baby is due in december isn't it. Would be great to hear something from her.

As for me (thanks all for asking !), I am now 18+3 and already feeling uncomfortable (although i've only gained 1.5kg so far so it is all bump), looking more like 25-30 weeks pregnant! Its quite frightening actually. I have to compare with pictures of my belly when i was pregnant with Niklas. I read that upto 26 weeks each twin grows at the same rate as a single twin then after that the growth slows down. It does explain why i'm getting tired very easily and can sleep 20 hours a day!!! its a lot of work my body is doing to grow and maintain 2 babies!

Thanks everyone - Niklas is a sweetie , although he hasn't been able to concentrate on eating properly in the evening for the last few days so has been waking us up and keeping us awake at night until we give him milk!

Any of your babies still have milk in a bottle? i keep thinking that Niklas shouldn't have, but we give him his milk while i read him his bedtime story and he comes into bed with us in the morning and has milk. if he had it in a cup our bed would be full of milk! and he really does need that early morning milk.

JAmbot - the apple cake recipe would be nice to have, and Pidge if you are interested I could give you the Rick Stein caramel apple thing recipe.

OP posts:
jambot · 13/10/2006 11:19

I give Lauren her milk in an Avent sippy cup. She can down the whole thing in 1 minute flat. No mess because of the plastic valve thing.
Wish I could send you all a photo of Cape Town today. It is the most beautiful day. Warm, no wind, bright blue skies - gorgeous. Think some swimming will be in order this weekend.