Fab Feb 2009 - 9 months in, 9 months out, now they're sitting, standing and crawling about

[TheHAUNTEDHouseofMirth]

Here we go again!

Morning.

We're going to my mum's today and she's not on-line so I wanted to say

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Will no doubt be around at some point boxing day.

Hope you and your families have a lovely day. xxx

I just got another secret santa box.
OMG, the stuff in there is AMAZING, there's clothes, puzzles, books, toys, dvd's plus an M&S voucher and some other bits for me
I am really grateful for whoever nominated us.
I just want you to know (whichever one of you it was) that these gifts have given me a warm, fuzzy feeling and can't wait to give the stuff to the boys.
Thank you

hello all. Had a mad panic earlier, my old laptop finally gave up the ghost. Its been playing up for a while and kept crashing and finally died last night. DH and I were dreading the thought of having to go down town and get another one (don't like to buy electrical stuff out here as it almost always goes wrong and when you go back they aren't very helpful) Anyway, a new computer shop has just opened up on our compound so DH went down last night ordered one and he has just picked it up with everything all loaded thank god as we are rubbish at IT.
How sad am I that the first thing I do is check up on MN?

LBB thats lovely that you got another parcel and this one sounds like a little everything for you and the boys.
So glad you got yours before Christmas. Have been reading the threads about it and looks like it has turned into a bit of nightmare this year and not everyone will get theirs for Christmas. I have to admit nagging the chief elf on several occasions as I wanted to get my gift out and am glad my recipients received theirs ok.

Glad you have a warm fuzzy feeling (was that the champagne?). Can't think why you keep saying it was one of us that nominated you? Don't you have other friends

Hope you have a lovely time at your mums and hope everyone has a very happy christmas

we've just got back from mass (yes a real catholic priest was smuggled out) and are going to a carol service in half an hour so trying to get festive. xxx

That is lovely LBB - am so pleased for you x

Happy Christmas everyone

Happy Birthday and safe journey MOS for Saturday

I'm knackered....and still so much to do!

Haven't been on forever, but just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas..

lbb.. how lovely about the secret santa presents..

Is there a still meet up early Jan ?

morning all.
Happy christmas everyone. Hope you all have a lovely day and get lots of lovely presents.

nkweto think the 4th January was suggested for a meet up

Merry christmas guys, just had an impromptu co sleeping night hence me being on here so early after being squashed out of the bed by 2 snoring arm waving lunatics.

Hope everyone has a lovely lovely day today xxx

merry christmas.

about to chance the very snowy roads to get to my parents, ds1 is a whingy with a cold, A is refusing to be put down and dd is playing with everyones toys but her own. [sighs]

at least i'm not trying to cook a dinner!

hope everyone else is having a more restful day

(actually i shouldn't complain, i'm probably the only parent in the western world with three under 5's who got to sleep til 9am this morning as my kids are lazy sods )

Evening all.
Hope everyone had a lovely day.
TandT Hope your journey today was ok.
We had a lovely day. My parents and bro went crazy on kids presents so they have been a little spoilt today. Jacob got toy helicopters, planes (a massive one), a fire truck and loads of bits. His favourite pressie was a little toy saxaphone from my mum. He has not put it down all day! It's all in tune too, is great so my Dad played him some songs earlier which Jacob thought was very funny. My dad used to play to me and my bro when we were in the bath as kids. Either the sax or claranet.
Dp was working today but ended up only doing 3 hours but getting paid for 36, so that's alright.
Better get off to bed now, has been a long day
mos Tbh, I haven't really been anywhere else on the site but here for ages, so it must have been one of you. A while ago mn got a bit 'funny' so I stopped even bothering going into active and just came here.
Since receiving my gifts though, it's shown me there are lots and lots of decent people on here and has kind of renewed my faith in mumsnet iyswim.

morning all,
hope everyone had a lovely Christmas day. Ours was a bit mixed. DD and DS had a lovely time but DH and I ended up arguing a lot. (I had the arse over the nasty present he bought me, god I sound a really ungrateful bitch but it upset me) He is capable of being a sulky little shit for days so of course he has carried it over to my birthday and been an arse this morning. Glad he has buggered off to work now so I can have some peace and quiet and maybe treat myself to some decent presents in the online sales
Main thing is, DD and DS had a fab time, it was the first christmas she really understood and was lovely. Added bonus was she slept for 12 hours last night!
Its exactly a year since I saw mum

Right, off to pack, leaving here around 6pm to come home x

mos glad the lo's had a good day. Sorry you and dp didn't.
Hope you find some good bargains.
{{{hugs}}}

Me, dp and the boys are having our xmas day today where the boys will get the presents from us (didn't do it yyesterday as didn't expect dp to be there to see them open any)
Although dp is still in bed so it might be more of a family afternoon!

It is now our lunchtime here and still none of my family has said happy birthday. Feckers. Will not bother with theirs in future

LBB hope you all enjoy your christmas today

Happy Birthday MOS

belated happy birthday mos.

had a mental xmas here, went to my parents as they swore blind their hill was passable only to get there at 4pm on xmas day and find the whole hill was a solid sheet of ice, couldn't get our car to the top so had to park it in the forestry and my dad came down to get us in his car which was just about able to do it with only 2 of us at a time.

they were in weird form, A was a nightmare and ds1 wasn't in great humour. they didn't have dinner on the table til close to 10pm... they eat late and refuse to make any concessions for the kids.

then yesterday we woke up to find the hill was even worse. dad drove us down to our car (more like bobsleighed us down actually as it was literally just ice) only to be met there by one of the neighbours who said the wonky turn at the base of the hill was impassable. three other cars had joined ours in the forestry and we all had to walk up... kids and bags in our arms and me wearing 4 inch heel boots on an uphill icerink we had no clothes for anyone, the water was gone as the pump had frozen and we were running out of milk. had a miserable night with my parents again making no concessions to the fact we had kids (both older kids cried before bed as 'we want to go home, it's too noisy here ')

got up this morning and finally got off after much more drama at about 2..... never again! next year we're staying home, cooking would have been less traumatic by far

on top of that i had 4 cats locked in the house as we were only supposed to be gone overnight and one poor cat outside as he had disappeared right before we needed to leave on xmas day... poor mites were starved and the one who was outside has only just turned up, frozen and annoyed

TandT That sounds awful! So sorry you had such a stressful time
Hope the dc's have settled down to bed and you are having a big glass/bottle of wine and some much deserved chocolate.

Nothing much happening here. Today I went through the boys toys and bagged up all the stuff they don't really play with or is too babyish.
We are just about back to normal now, thank God.

Happy belated birthday MoS - hope you got yourself some lovely presents, glad the kids had a lovely christmas but sorry you and DP argued and his present was so crap

LBB - glad you had a lovely christmas and second christmas celebration with DP. The MN Santa thing is such a lovely thing (definitely the nicer side of MN) and am so glad its made your christmas special - DH got me a present from good gifts this year which was a present for a child (new pjs and gift) who would otherwise get nothing at christmas and it almost made me cry - its such a lovely thing to do.

TAT - nightmare christmas Really hope you've recovered now from that ordeal.

The boys had a lovely christmas and were spoilt rotten by grandparents and family friends. However argued with my slightly neurotic and ever so slightly crazy mother on christmas eve (she basically accused me of being an alcoholic infront of MIL and DH and my dad, out of nowhere, and then was furious at me for being annoyed and embarrassed at her behaviour - and everybit as furious with my dad for agreeing that her behaviour was out of order) and Danny was insomniac the entire time we were there so not the best christmas of all time...

So Meet Up on 4th - anymore takers? MoS where do you come into?

drinky at your mother.
I can't do the meet-up, dp's on nights all that week. Next time though

cant sleep another work dilemna, long and boring story.

Had a nice crimbo Izzy got spoilt of course, up to yorkshire today to see more family. Sounds like a few stressful times been had big hugs

I would love to meet up but suppose its a but far from Manchester

enjoy new year all xxx

hello all and thanks for the birthday wishes. Sadly my plan to get a bit of shopping in at Dubai airport between flights went tits up as the flight from Riyadh to Dubai was so late that we almost missed our connecting flight so no duty free shopping
Got back home around 8am yesterday bloody knackered. Big kids got back about 4pm and it was lovely to see them. DS seem to have grown around 6 inches.
Was so choked with the present he bought for my birthday (DD like DH just bought the first bubble bath she saw) DS had bought we a beautiful tanzanite necklace on a white gold chain. He knows I love tanzanite as I had a tanzanite ring made for my 40th birthday. It is gorgeous and he also bought me a beautiful box of smellies and the box which is a reusable one is my favourite colour, a lovely shade of teal which matches the bedroom that I decorated last year so now I can put all my clutter in it.
He is so lovely and thoughtful and had me in tears. I can't believe he is only 16 but so wise and sensible. How did I do that?

We are having our christmas today, full lunch presents etc, no thank to bloody tescos and their daft substitutions on my food delivery. I'm sure the mini frozen sausage rolls will go well with the turkey instead of the pigs in blankets

PT sorry you had such a nightmare on Christmas day and I have to say how bloody selfish of your parents not making concessions for the children. I know that old people can be set in their ways but FFS, christmas dinner at 10pm that is bloody stupid. Stay at home next year and have a lovely day doing what YOU want to do x

dinky glad you had a lovely time apart from your mum who sounds crazy. That gift thing from your DH sounds great, might look into that for next year as to be honest, I'd rather DH did that than buy me crap
I think I'm finally mature as I seem to get far more pleasure buying gifts for others than receiving (except DSs present to me)
I loved reading the mumsnet santa thread, it is so nice and like LBB says, it does restore your faith in humanity.

LBB glad you all had a lovely time and the boys got lovely presents. I know what you mean about MN going a bit funny a while ago. I used to hang out in 'legal' a lot but some loon started having a go at me so I've pretty much stopped now. Will just stick to the nice friendly threads on here, ie you guys and some lovely girls I've met in 'bereavement' who have really helped me through the last 7 months.

ref meet up, I'm still up for the 4th if anyone else is. LBB what a shame you can't make it. Dinky I'm coming from Crawley so will arrive into Victoria.

Morning.
Re meet up. I know, shame I can't go, but can't put ds's on my parents on a week night. Actually, I might be able to........ will have a chat with my dad.

I'm trying to get Luke off bottles and onto spouts but he's not very interested. He has juice from a hard spout, but isn't keen on the milk. Thinking of it, I have a soft spout beaker, I'll get that out.
Luke is pulling himself up on everything now , clever boy.

Also meant to say mos your ds sounds lovely. What a lovely gift.
Hope you all have a nice day today

Morning all. MOS - have a lovely meal today and am so pleased your DS1 was so thoughtful with his gifts to you - he's clearly a well brought up boy! Sorry you didnt get any shopping in at Dubai but there's always the return leg

LBB - to be honest, I dont think there is any massive need to get Luke off bottles onto sippy cups 100% at the moment, unless you think he prefers them to bottles (which doesnt sound the case at the moment) as He's not even 1 yet and as long as he's practicing drinking from his sippy cup with water/juice he'll be in good stead to move from bottles to them for his milk when he's more proficient with them. That said DS1 was on bottles for milk (cups for everything else) till nearly 2 and then transitioned with no issues onto cups so I always take the path of least resistance for an easy life....

Re my mum - we've always had a difficult relationship and I've always known she's abit of a fruitloop (and lived in terror of it being hereditary) but she's mellowed abit in the past couple of years and been on best behaviour around me after a spectacular blow out on Mother's day when DS1 was nearly 2 so her return to form took me by surprise. Its difficult as I want my boys to get to know their grandparents and have a good relationship with them - but that comes at the cost of me dealing with my mum's insanity and snippy comments (her other gem was that my boys are far too attached to me - I asked her who would she rather they were attached to when they were so small and she didnt really have an answer and went off on another tangent).

drinky I'm only trying to give him 1 milk feed a day out of a spouted cup. I don't want to still be using bottles when I stop sterilising.
I thin it's just going to take a few tries with different cups like it did with ds1. Jacob hasn't had a bottle since he was 13/14 months (unless he's drinking Luke's leftovers).
Don't know what to say about your mum.

hello all, just had our lovely christmas dinner and feeling suitably stuffed.
Had some lovely presents this morning. DS bought me one of my favourite ever films on DVD. Holiday Inn (white christmas) I love it and only said to DH a few days ago it felt wrong having Christmas without watching that film so will watch it tonight hopefully.
Still a mit miffed with DH and his crappy present, a nasty pvc handbag which still had the $21.99 label on. I spent more than that on my secret santa. Will tell him next year not to bother and do that thing that dinky was talking about. Such a lovely idea.

Right, off to flop on the sofa with a nice glass of champagne. Did you enjoy yours LBB? Saw on thank you tread you were scoffing your choccies.

Fair enough LBB - am sure Luke will get the hang of it soon enough. He sounds like he's developing in leaps and bounds at the moment.

MoS - glad you had a lovely lunch and hurrah for another lovely present. I love old school musicals like that - have a great evening tonight watching it. Sorry you got such a rubbish present from your DH though - no wonder you're still abit upset.

I think that Danny's second tooth (of 5) is just cutting through his gum at the moment so fingers crossed the others will follow soon...