More ordinary stuff

Well, as the title of this (and the previous) post implies, we haven't been up to anything particularly spectacular recently, but have nevertheless been having a great time doing everyday stuff.

We're really enjoying the kids. Dulcie seems to be doing different things every day. She has got a new facial expression which I hope you can see clearly in the picture: it's a kind of screwed up nose grin. If you look carefully in one of the pics (click on them to make them bigger) you should just be able to make out her crazy vampire teeth, the middle two haven't really come out properly yet but the next two are right out and looking rather fangish. She crawls really, really fast now (so fast that you're looking around the room wondering where she's got to.) Today we found her on top of our mini trampoline, so climbing is obviously a skill she's about to get going on! And her hair's started to go a bit curly at the back!

Thea is very imaginative in her play and we spend a lot of time following her instructions being kings and queens, all sorts of animals etc. She's very loving and affectionate. Days are spent making, building, colouring, painting, picking flowers. Her current preferred media are blu tack and selotape. Recently, the whole gang of her soft toys were selotaped up and we were told that they were wearing space suits and going to the moon. I have had the genius idea of getting her a CD player in her room and buying a few story CDs, which means she actually lies down for a bit at 'siesta' time and doesn't just trash her room for an hour.

The lady you won't know in one of the pics is Jane. She's going to be looking after the girls on 3 out of 4 Friday afternoons for us to give Mummy a bit of a needed break. She's brilliant; we met her at playgroup as 4 days a week she nannies one of the little girls Thea knows at playgroup.

We are on a bit of a self improvement drive at the moment. Our church homegroup is studying The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman (why do these NY Times Bestsellers always have to have seven of something? Despite that I recommend it...), we're going to an excellent parenting course on Sunday afternoons developed by these people in New Zealand https://www.parentsinc.org.nz/toolbox-parenting-group-information/, and stone the flaming crows if I haven't taken up jogging. I know, I know, I've said a thousand times that I CAN NOT run on the road but having invested in a good pair of shoes it appears that I can. Slowly. And not very far!!! The plan is to crank it up to go a couple of times a week so I can actually start to lose that post baby spare tyre. I think I'll have to ration my trips to the coffee shop to even start to make a dent in it, to be fair...

And today I pruned the roses. It's all beginning to sound a bit middle aged, isn't it? I guess I can redeem that by adding that we've been 'gigging' a bit lately and have the seen the Shins (average) and The Cure (pretty darn good) in the last two weeks. And we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary this weekend with a marvellous Burmese takeaway with Brown Brothers bubbly one night, followed by a night out to a swizzy restaurant the next. Hurrah.