Instagram Our Adventure – Disney 2020February 3, 2020So our adventure began on Saturday 25th January. We left home at 12pm, caught the train to Reading, then on to another train to the airport. Once we arrived at the airport we had a small walk to the hotel. Our first issue was, we didn’t know how to exit the airport on foot. After doing a few circles and being mum shamed about the way Tahlia was sat in her pram (she had fallen asleep sitting up) we finally found the way out. The small walk turned out to be, a mile and a half walk with a pram, a four year old, 2 large suitcases, 4 rucksacks and a weekend bag, down a muddy alleyway, round the houses, along a main road and finally into a type of industrial estate. Only to find out there was a bus that could have taken us! Dan really wasn’t in the best of moods and my constant preach about it being an adventure, that we should embrace it and that we will be laughing about it later, wasn’t helping.Once we had checked in and got all the bags into the room, we went down for some food which was surprisingly tasty, So we decided to have breakfast there too! The girls where a nightmare getting to sleep! Aella has always loved staying in hotels, so was ridiculously excited and it was all a very new experience for Tahlia but we managed to get them down and head to bed ourselves for around 9.30pm! I’m really not a great flyer, the whole process from getting to the airport all the way to getting to the hotel at the other end overwhelms me, I find it really stressful and I can never relax but despite all that, the flight went well and the girls were great! Aella enjoyed time on her tablet, watched a film or two, did some colouring, whilst Tahlia, napped, hogged my screen and used me as a climbing frame. Obviously my favourite part of the whole day was getting to the hotel, I had a head ache starting and needed to sit down! The girls needed to have a good run around after a 9 hour plane journey and a half hour transfer and Dan was itching to get unpacked and settled in. Our plan was to stay up until around 9pm which would be 2am in the UK but myself and the girls could only manage until 8pm (we were both pretty impress with the girls!). Which still worked out perfectly as none of us suffered from jet lag!... Read more...Dear Diary | 14th January 2020January 14, 2020First post of the year! It was my intention to write more, I wanted to be writing my 3rd blog post already but that didn’t happen. I haven’t made resolutions this year (I never tend to stick to them!) but if I had have, maybe one would have been to write more. I love having little updates on life that I can look back on and something the girls can look back on too. We have had a little move around in the house which I’m hoping will encourage me to write more! We have moved the play room out and an office in, it sounds really mean to do that to the girls but it was actually Aella’s idea and want. The girls rarely played in the play room, they would grab a toy (a toy.. who am I kidding! All the toys they can possibly pick up!) and bring it into the lounge or dining area to play with it.Anyway just before Christmas Aella told us she wanted her play room moved, she told us she didn’t like going in there and felt a too far away. So that’s exactly what we did! Finally after about 3 weeks (yep, we did the room change just before Christmas!), the office space is now tidy and useable! I’ve never had an office before, so it’s all a little exciting. Both Dan and I have said how having this space as an office makes the room far more inviting, maybe that’s just because our things are in it. Another thing, my camera is fixed! A few months ago, it got damaged, I was reluctant to pay for a new lens so didn’t. Anyway, at the start of the month the camera got knocked again and gave up on me. My options were, buy a new lens, attempt to fix it myself or get a pro to fix it. All I could think was, the money I would pay getting it repaired, I might as well buy a new lens but before that, why not give the repair a go myself.So after opening up the lens, finding the issue, buying the part (£2.55) and repairing the problem, I have a working camera! I am so proud of myself, I feel like I have a new camera. Fingers crossed it continues to work! Onto another week, hopefully all feeling a little better after a week full of colds. Simonex... Read more...Rosie The Elf Riddles Advent!November 30, 2019This is the first year I feel like we can really start feeling the magical side of Christmas with the girls. Aella is definitely of the age where everything is exciting.So, this year we have brought in the elf! Our elf will be with us from the 1st December to the night of the 24th when Santa will pick her back up. We have decided to use our elf a little differently to the normal ‘Elf behaving badly’ things I have seen over the past couple years. Our elf will be riddling out the girls advent. Which saves me from having to move the elf each day or having to rush downstairs before the girls of a morning, to tip over a bag of sugar and sit the elf on it, whilst crying about the fact I’ll have to clear it all up later in the day! So how is our riddling elf advent going to work?Well, each morning the elf aka Rosie will be holding a piece of paper, which will have a riddle written on it. Aella will have to solve the riddle to find where her (and Tahlia’s) advent gift is hiding. In the hiding spot she will find a little red and white box with a number on. Aella will need to be able to tell me what number it is, for the box to unlock! In the box there will be a chocolate for each of the girls, a little note with a Christmasy activity that the girls can do that day and a note with a film suggestion for the evening. I am so excited about this and i’m hoping that the girls really enjoy it every morning.... Read more...The Diary | 29th November 2019November 29, 2019‘Tis the season to be jolly! Aella is now old enough to get properly excited about Christmas, the decorations, the idea of snow, Santa and his reindeer, giving presents and just the whole magic of if all. Tahlia isn’t quite there yet, she is still at the ‘fascinated with the lights and taking the baubles off the tree’ stage. I’m sure that wont stop us decorating the whole tree though, then after a week of seeking out the hidden decorations, we will lift everything up from the bottom rows!! We are days away from December which in our household and I’m sure like many others, means the start of Christmas! I’m in the process of putting together and advent hunt for the girls. On the 1st they will be introduced to an elf that each morning will be holding a riddle for them to work out (when I say them, I mean Aella! Tahlia for sure will just run in the direction Aella does or accidentally come across that day’s gift!), the answer to the riddle is where the gift is hidden. So I’ve been writing a list of places to hide gifts and riddles that match those places. I’m so excited about this and really hope the girls love it too! So the last couple of months have been pretty intense. Aella has started school! WOW!It’s tiring for me and I’m not even the one going to school, learning and playing all day. The whole school routine is so new to us, Aella never went to a nursery or preschool so our days were different to the structure of a typical school day.Aella finds it tiring too but enjoys it so much, I love seeing her running out of school with a massive smile on her face. Still now I’m so excited to find out about her day and what she has been doing! I found out quickly though it isn’t easy finding out.“What have you done today at school?” I would ask keenly in the first few weeks of school.“I don’t remember” she would reply!Very quickly we stopped asking to much about school on the walk home, she’s just spent all day there, she clearly isn’t interested in talking about it having just left, instead we have fun, we walk through puddles, we collect leaves, we point out the biggest house on the road and we talk about the colour of cars. When we do talk about school, we now change up the questions that we ask her to pin point specific things that happened, like “What was the funniest thing that happened today?” or “What was your teacher’s most important rule today.” The replies we receive back are far from “I don’t know” and are often filled with more conversation and laughter. I have been struggling with the amount of letters that get sent home, the text reminders, the dates for events, remembering to do homework and helping Aella with it. It’s still very new but I am embracing it, going with it and enjoying what this new chapter is bringing us! I know it will all get easier, there’s just been a lot of information to process and a lot of changes to get used to! Anyway I better get on with writing some more riddles! Simone x... Read more...The Diary |14 June 2019June 14, 2019WELL! What a busy few months it has been. So after what felt like forever trying to find a house, we finally found one and have moved in! We received the keys on early May and all the furniture was delivered the next day. Dan traveled back to the old house to finish any cleaning whilst I stayed at mums with the girls and then began unpacking.Unpacking was the weirdest feeling, it felt so pointless that everything had been boxed up because now it had to all be unboxed, but I knew there was no other way of moving all our things. We have been here over a month now and slowly we are settling in, there are still small little jobs that need to be done and we need to get ourselves into a better routine but otherwise we are very much enjoying our new home. So much more space, although we seem to have filled it very easily. Aella have been offered a place at our first choice school, which was all a little bit stressful. Any parent of school children knows that the deadline for school applications is in January, but we were moving, we just didn’t know where to. We had applied for schools back in Peterborough just to be on the safe side, but by the time we found out her school, we had already found a house. So, we then had to go through late applications but there is barely any information about the process online, after contacting school admissions, we filled in the forms and emailed them across and then declined the school she had been offered, gave a reason and a copy of our new tenancy agreement. After that, it was just a waiting game. No matter how much I searched, I couldn’t find something that would tell me when I was likely to hear about schools which I found really unsettling and stressful BUT… whilst out Costa sipping on a latte, I received and email from one of the schools (our 2nd choice) saying we had a place there, fantastic. I could relax now, I was sent letters from them, and had been in contact with them, only to receive a letter 2 weeks later from school admissions offering us a different school (our first choice)! After an hour and a half of panicking, not about the situation but about having to make a phone call, I called school admissions and they talked me through what had happened. Basically, we was offered our second choice, but Aella was first on the waiting list of her first choice and a space became available. Typing this, it doesn’t sound stressful at all, but I was pulling my hair out over it. If you’ve read this far, well done… i’ve been wanting to natter on about that palaver for a week or so now but there isn’t an easy way of writing confusing and stressful situations. Amazing news though, first choice school and yesterday I received a letter from them confirming Aella has a place and informing me of the meeting I need to attend! Not sure right now if the smile on my face is because I’m so excited for Aella to start school, or a smile to fight back the tears because I don’t want her to start school. (Yep you read that right… wanting her to go and not wanting her to go at the same time.) Anyway, thats’s enough of my ranting! Next week I’ll give an update on my smallest human. Happy Friday and enjoy your weekend! Simone -x- P.s I haven’t read any of this post back because I have pots and pans screaming at me to wash them, so I hope it makes sense!... Read more...The Diary | 17th March 2019March 17, 2019Good morning! I didn’t post on Thursday (well I did attempt to), there is a reason for that! We are naming this week, “The Week I Nearly Lost My Finger”! I am doomed when it comes to cars, I never get it right. With bills for grands worth of work, door handles that break two months after purchase, free fleas (yep I bought a car that had fleas), over heating engines, windows that blow fuses when you press the button for going up or down, exhausts that fall off (whilst driving!! That was scary!), exhausts that need constant repair and cars that will work at 6pm but not at 8am. I am a car salesman’s dream, show me a cheap, shiny, clean car and tell me it works fine and I’m sold. I have no clue what I’m supposed to be looking out for and trust far to easily. Anyway this isn’t how I nearly lost a finger! I’ve decided either the car dislikes me because I tried to replace her, I mean she is the tiniest car and barely fits the four of us and a pram (although somehow we managed to fit golf clubs in too the other day), or Dan is trying to tell me he doesn’t want to marry me.So we go out for the day, get to the car park and begin the “emptying the car” routine, us out, Gracie out, pram out, coats on (normally it would continue, bag and finally Rue), I bent over supporting myself on the car, careful not to knock the bigger shiner car next to ours, reaching in for the bag… BANG!!! I squealed! The squeal very quickly turned into a strange grunting full of fear, fear that today was the day I lose a finger and worst of all, my ring finger! Dan had slammed the boot on my finger, oblivious to what he had done, he asked me what was wrong whilst giving me an odd look. I took myself to my happy place and began breathing though the pain, I replied as calmly as I could “my finger”. He stood there a little longer just staring in disbelief that my finger was trapped completely crushed in the car boot, a car boot that you can only unlock with the keys or the latch inside the car. Finally he asked where the keys are but obviously my thoughts weren’t focused on the location of those, I was chanting, which went a little like this “get my finger out, get my finger, get my finger out, fuck, fuck, fuck” and the occasional “oh, that hurts a little bit” chucked in obviously the “little bit” was an understatement. I had to clearly explain to Dan what he had to do (yes clearly explain because Dan would have started rolling on the floor and sliding across the car bonnet thinking he was a superhero!) I am now nearly passing out, which could have been the deep breaths filled with fumes from he carpark or the fact my finger basically cut in half! The boot was released and both Dan and I were happy to see my finger in one piece! Dan laughed, I cried which turned into a laugh and then it turned into that really ugly laugh cry we do when our emotions aren’t sure whats going on anymore.I rang my Dad to ask him if this was a hospital moment, I’m not really a hospital fan (well I am, I think they are great for people that need them!) I just don’t like being a time waster. I decided not to go but since then, using my X-ray vision, I’ve diagnosed myself with a broken my finger. This week has been a painfully week but Dan has been great, he has done all the washing and washed up everyday, done all the cooking, basically cleaned the house from top to bottom and has also told me he will paint my nails. I’ve also been told it highly likely my nail will fall off, which makes me feel rather unwell! Let’s hope this week will be a little less painful! Simone Alice -x-... Read more...The Diary | 10th March 2019March 10, 2019It was Rue’s birthday three days ago but we have only just celebrated, yesterday we had Mum and Dave along with my brother and niece with us, today it’s Dan’s side. Since her birthday she has been very moany which I am going to blame on teething, I can feel a tooth sitting just beneath her gum and can only imagine it causing a little discomfort. With the moaning though there has been lots of smiles and giggles. I actually managed to get a decent sleep last night too, for the second maybe third time ever Rue slept through the night 7pm to 6am which after a fun day of seeing lots of people and a second day of the same, a good sleep is what we all needed! I am in no rush to get her to sleep though the night though, she is only 12months old, I understand that she still needs me, needs to know I’m not far away and sometimes needs an extra cuddle. I know these days don’t last forever so second time around I have chosen to embrace these sleepless nights (that doesn’t mean too say I haven’t cried from exhaustion or wished she would just go to sleep, now and again!) Moving on, the weather was so beautiful yesterday bar a wind that put a chill in the air. I decided to put the washing on the line (I love line dried clothes, theres something so satisfying about pulling crisp washing in off the line, makes my belly bubble with excitement a little #LifeAsAnAdult ), well this numpty (me) forgot it was out, so it was left on the line last night and we have woken up to rain, lots and lots of rain!I am that neighbour you laugh at because you look out the window and you see my washing sadly swinging, soaking wet on the line. I dread bring it in 1. incase my neighbours see me in my socks and crocs through their window and sympathetically sigh a little to themselves at how I’m totally not winning at life and 2. my washing baskets are both full resulting in me attempting to unpeg and carry the line full of in, in one hit. I’m going to get soaked! I better go for a wash! Family is arriving in about 2 hours and I have a track record of never being ready on time! Simone Alice -x-... Read more...The Diary | 7th March 2019March 7, 2019And just like that little Rue is a year old, 12 whole months! She is walking and talking, very loud, showing her sister who’s boss (hair pulling is a daily occurrence, we are working on the “be gentle”). Laughing at herself everyday and still a boob monster! We are still awaiting the first tooth and just like Gracie, Rue has barely any hair.It feels like the quickest year of my life, my memories of giving birth, bringing her home, sleepless nights and hitting milestones are all still so clear, like each one only happened yesterday. Being a second time parent has been and will continue to be challenging fucking hard work but with that, there is so much joy. Those girls of mine really do make me smile. I think one of the best things to see on this parenting journey is Gracie becoming a wonderful big sister, she will often whinge when Rue takes her toys or plays in her room but if she cries, if she is hurt or if she has dropped something, Gracie wants to be the first there to sing, to kiss and cuddle and to make her feel better. On a negative note, stress levels are high! I can’t keep on top of anything at the moment! No matter how much washing I do, the basket is always spilling out the edges, the washing up on the sides- dishwasher please?! The clothes to put away scattered across the bedroom floor (they were once folded neatly) and Gracie’s bedroom, well, it’s like a toy shop that has been hit by bulldozer. Anyway, lets stop talking about the stress as I want to be in a good mood for Rue on her special day. Happy 1st Birthday sweet one! Simone Alice -x-... Read more...The Diary | 3rd March 2019March 3, 2019Well this is something new! After my youngest daughter waking up and not resettling this morning, I decided to just get up with her. So at 4.47am I was up having breakfast, 20minutes later Rue (my youngest) had fallen asleep. So there I was at the crack of dawn debating going back to bed or having a productive morning and for once I chose the latter. Both girls are sparko and I am up, showered, dressed, fed and watered coffee’d (not a word but we will go with it!) and currently typing but also getting sh*t done. We have so much to do in the next few weeks, top of the list is a massive clear out. We have phones from 2013 gathering dust in boxes, paperwork filed from our first jobs that just isn’t necessary to keep and I have a prom dress delicately dumped on the top on my wardrobe, yep a prom dress! We have a 9 weeks plan, to get things things tipped, sold, shipped off to charity shops and cleaned. I guess we could call this an intense spring clean. Anyway I better crack on! Simone Alice -x-... Read more...
