2nd January 2016

Well Christmas is over and New Year has gone so that is all done and dusted for another year.  Only 357 days until we get to do it all again!

I was looking at some of my blog statistics today. The last 2 years have been rubbish. I managed just 28 last year and about 38 in 2014. I used to love blogging so much and more or less never missed a day. It seemed to all go downhill when we moved 4 years ago.

It isn't that I don't want to blog.  It is simple lack of time.  I never have enough hours in my day and right now I often have other things that I prefer to do.

However, I do miss the people that I used to interact with.  I am now only in regular touch with 2 of my old bloggy friends which is such a shame.

So, I know I have said it before, but I am going to try and give it another go.  I'm not promising daily blogs or even weekly blogs but I am going to  try to be here more often. If I have time and it suits me.  I'll see.

Right now I am snuggled up in bed with Beanie.  I have my cosy PJ's on and I am waiting for Simon to come up with a drink.   It has been a great start to the New Year for us with all our family together in Peterborough to celebrate Saskia's 30th birthday.

We went to Bella Italia which was ok.   I am not a fan of Italian food but everyone else seemed really pleased with their meals.  We had a wonderful time. I'll post a few photos when I get up.

Ok time for bed now as it is really late. Be back soon hopefully!

Blessings - Shafiq Morra Usman Abdullahi

Phew, just managed to make it here. That's 3 days in a row. Simon has finished now for the Easter holidays. He will be at home for 18 days so it is a good long break for him.

We have had a relatively lazy day. This morning we were sorting out Tallulah ready for next week. Simon had to change a fuse which had blown on our last trip and stopped the heating working. It took a bit of figuring out. I gave her a thorough vacuum to make sure she is spick and span for her next adventure. I also loaded in some new food supplies and got all Beanie's food sorted and stored.

With that job done, I set about doing some online banking whilst Simon got our potatoes planted. We already have onions and garlic in that have overwintered. We just ordered some seed today. This year we would like to grow some of our bedding and basket flowers from seed.

This afternoon we paid a visit to the kennels to drop off a load of stuff for the market tomorrow. We are not able to go this month as it is Morra's 1^st birthday party tomorrow.

Speaking of Morra gets me back to my theme of blessings. Morra is Saskia's little one. All our grandchildren are wonderful blessings and all very special. Morra came to us at a time of great sadness and he bought such joy and happiness with him. He was born just 4 days after we lost my Dad.

The day Dad died, I travelled with Verity and Jackson to Saskia in Leicester. Because she was so close to giving birth she was not able to be with us at the hospital. We could not tell her that her Granddad had gone over the phone, so we had to go to her. I will always remember that journey and Saskia's reaction. We were all so upset that Dad never got to meet little Morra. Every time I visited him in those last weeks, the first thing he asked was “how is Saskia doing”?

Morra was born on the 23^rd of March. He should have been born at home and Saskia had Coralie there with her but in the event, due to his heart beat dropping very low, she was swiftly moved to the hospital and he came shortly after. What a gift he was too. I can't tell you how much he raised our spirits. It was good to have something to smile about even though my every thought at that point was tinged with sorrow. I would have given anything for Dad to have been able to see him. I am sure that Dad knew that he was at the funeral service with everyone else despite being just a few days old.

He was quite a small baby but grew rapidly. We think that Mummy’s milk was gold top! Now at a year old he is about average, although on the tall side. His Daddy is tall. It's hard to say who he looks like but in the most recent photos, I can see the Sansum in him.

I can't believe he is already a year old. I have no idea where that year went to. He is walking now and I am looking forward to seeing that tomorrow. I have seen videos and he was nearly there last time we saw him.

His party is tomorrow and all the family will be there except Sam, Lisa and the girls as they are currently in France. I am so looking forward to it. I love the occasions when we are all together. To have a large and close knit family is another blessing. Doesn't mean they don’t get on my nerves sometimes! LOL.

Here are some photo's from Morra's first year.

 

 I love this one of Ellie.  It was the first time they met.  The eldest and the youngest!

 

 Three of my four boys.

 

I will post some photos from his party after tomorrow.

Have a great weekend.

Jilly

Happy Birthday Saskia

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday dear Saskia

Happy Birthday to you.

My baby is 28 today!!

My baby is expecting her very own baby!!

Hope you had a great day, 

love from Mum and Dad 

xxxxx

MIA again

I have just looked back at my blog and it appears that I have been missing in action again for well over 2 weeks.  Time flies when you are having fun!  Time flies when you are busy too but I have had some fun along the way.    So where to begin with my update?  You know me, I won't possibly be able to remember the whole 2 weeks.

I guess Jackson is a good starting point as my last blog was about him being back in the NICU.  He is now 5 weeks old.  Incredible.  Of course he wasn't even due to be born for another 5 weeks yet.  He is doing really, really well now.  He was moved out of NICU last week on to SCBU.  He is now out of his incubator and just in a "hot cot" which they are turning down day by day.  He only has 2 wires now, a heart monitor and a temperature  monitor.  He still has his feeding tube although he does now have a sucking reflex and is beginning to feed from Mummy.  It is slow progress as he finds it hard to suck and breath at the same time. He weighs 4lbs now. All his test results are now fine. The heart specialist is pleased with him.

Here are the latest photos of our little guy.

These next 2 were just taken yesterday.

Last week was the school half term break in Lincolnshire.  As always it was really busy.  Simon spent one complete day moving cars around.  His truck has gone to someone to do some work that for some reason he can't do. His dragster is now residing in the garage. We had dentist appointments, several meals out, a day in Lincoln,  an evening out with staff from the old Walton school, a trip to Stevenage to collect my Dad, then to Stamford station to collect Saskia. We had a day in Leicester at the fabric shop, lots of kennel visits and we saw lots of the grandchildren. It was busy.

Alfie had a day at the vets for more scans and X-rays.The good news is that his very large bladder stone has broken down into much small pieces and they were able to get some of them out. He has been given more tablets which should hasten the process. The bad news was his arthritis is looking pretty bad. More bad news was received in a letter........our insurance will not cover the cost of his very, very expensive prescription food.

I am sure I have missed stuff out.  I don't seem to have any photos though.  How about one of Alfie the evening he got back from the Vet.  He is still very drugged up.

Here is a  recent one of my 2 gorgeous boys.

Photo blatantly stolen from Coralie's Facebook page!

We had a good few days with my Dad. He saw 4 of his great grandchildren and he enjoyed that. He came and had a cup of tea at the dog rescue kennels and he got to see Jenson the Dalmatian.  He took a walk down to our village church and lit a candle for my Mum.  That seems to have become a regular thing when he visits here.  I'm not sure why as he doesn't do that anywhere else. On Sunday we took him to Leicester to the Fabric Guild.  He has wanted to go for ages. He is really into his sewing now.  He has made me 4 tote bags for the fund raiser for the doggies and also this table runner for me.  He has made a good job of it.

The Fabric Guild was disappointing.  They had a sale on, which was good but they had less than a quarter of the stock that they would normally have.  Also I thought they closed at 2pm and they close at 1pm so we only had about 40 minutes there.  It was a good job that we had combined it with taking Saskia home otherwise it would have been very annoying.  My Dad still thought it was a fantastic place and I still managed to spend lots of money!

We had some good news on Sunday evening.  My niece Carly has just had her first baby.  A little girl named Annabelle Iris. Both are doing well.  My Dad was so thrilled.  He especially liked that she has Iris in her name as that was Mum's name.  He can't wait to see her.  He now has 6 great grandchildren, 3 boys and 3 girls. She is my sisters first grandchild so they are all very excited.

Simon took my Dad home yesterday and he is now back at school so peace and quiet is here again.  I will probably be spending the next few days getting the house back to normal.  It deteriorates rapidly when Simon is on holiday!  I get out of my routine.

Today, I have washing, ironing, cleaning etc, etc. Hopefully I will find some sewing time too.  I have done lots of sewing the last few weeks and will do a show and tell soon.  Right now, I am having a coffee  before hoovering my bedroom.  Our lovely cuddle arm chair is being delivered this morning.

Well my coffee is finished so I suppose it is time to move myself into gear.

Last show and tell for 2012

Show and tell time.  These are the last few things that I made in 2012.  I have already got started on 2013's makes but I will show you them in a week or so.

I started making stuff for Christmas presents last January and I was pretty much done by around October.  I am happy to say that my presents all seemed to go down pretty well.

The last few weeks were spent in making a secret Santa gift and a bum bag for my blog friend Eevee.

The secret Santa was organised by Kathy over in Merika.  It was more a swap than a traditional secret Santa although I think she did it with several friends.  Basically the idea was to make something from our scraps and stocks.  Value of no more than $5. I think that is about £8.    Then we swapped.  Kathy sent me a cute little pillow made form her own hand dyed fabric.  It is very cute and I will try to remember to take  photo to show you.

I wasn't sure what to do for Kathy and then I thought I would copy the spring panel from my 4 seasons wall hanging that I made early last year. I used different fabrics but it is very similar.  Simon made the heart shaped, wire hanger.  I think Kathy was pleased with it.

This the original 4 seasons with spring in the top left.

This is the one that I did for Kathy.

The other things I made were for my friend Eevee.  She had seen my bum bag and liked it and as she does volunteer work for a local raptor centre I said that I would make her one in owl fabric.  Eevee loves owls.   I think I showed you the fabric previously.

This is the bum bag.  Apologies to Eevee as  the strap was way to big!

I had left over fabric so I made her a little coaster to put her coffee cup on.

I was on a roll so I also made her a little felt brooch.

Eeevee also liked my small stuffed owls and missed buying one on eBay.  Don't know how that happened as they haven't really sold.  Anyway, I made her a little red one.

She received them today and I have had an email of thanks so I think she was pleased.  Hopefully later this year we may actually meet up.  Eevee doesn't live that far from me.

This is Saskia modelling Eevee's bag.

Before I go I must just show you the bum bags that Saskia made on Christmas eve.  She made 2 of these for Evan and Flynn.

So that is the last show and tell for 2012.  I shall  be back soon.  I just have to decide what to make everyone for next Christmas!!

Our Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas.  Surrounded by family as always.  It begun on the 22nd when Simon collected Saskia from the station.  We had a lovely afternoon as Coralie came over with the boys and Lisa and Sam with the girlies and we made paper chains.  The children loved it.  They took some home and we hung some up.  We only had a tiny tree this year so the paper chains helped to make it look more festive.  We have taken them down today.

On Christmas eve Saskia and I had a bit of a sewing day.  She made 2 bum bags for presents for Evan and Flynn and a cushion for a friend.  I just pottered in my sewing room.  The evening was spent watching TV and relaxing.

Christmas day began at 8am as we had told Saskia that she had to go down and bring us coffee and biscuits. She was delighted to find the stocking that we had done for her hanging on her door.  She sat on our bed to open her gifts while we drank our coffee.  It wasn't quite the same as the days when all 5 of them would sit on our bed excitedly ripping open presents at 5am but it was still a lovely moment.

We had cooked the turkey on Christmas eve so we only had the gammon joint and veggies to prepare.  We got them ready and then went down to Sam and Lisa's house for an hour.  The girls were very excited and it was lovely to see them open their presents.

We received a house number plate from Sam and Lisa.  Lisa made it herself from mosaic tiles.

We were home by 11.30am and Verity and Steve arrived shortly after. We had a lovely relaxed time before dinner which went down really well. There were only the 5 of us which is the smallest number we have ever had. Verity had made a brownie cake which we had with raspberry coulis and cream for dessert.  None of us eat Christmas pudding.  She is one good cook.

After lunch we opened some presents.  I got a floor standing, day light lamp from Simon for my sewing room.  I also got 2 vouchers from him.  1 for a £100 shopping trip and 1 for me to get my hair done.  Do you think he is trying to tell me something?

Coralie, John and the boys arrived about 4pm shortly followed by Josh and Charlotte.   Sam and Lisa were not with us as they went to Lisa's parents for tea. We all had fun waiting to feel verity's baby moving.

We had a wonderful time opening presents.  The boys seemed to be very pleased with the bedtime buddies that I had made them.  We had a buffet tea as always around 6pm and then it was time for everyone to depart.  I mean every one as Saskia went back with Verity and Steve for a few days. It was the first Christmas night that we have ever been just the 2 of us.  It seemed a little odd not to have anyone staying but we enjoyed sitting and vegging out in front of the TV.

Boxing day we were totally alone as the rest of the family all went to Verity and Steve's in Cambridge.  we couldn't go as we cant leave Alfie for too long.  It was an odd day.  Just like a normal weekend day really.   We spent it relaxing and pottering as we did the following day.

This is me wearing my Christmas jammies that Saskia got me.  I was cold so I had them on over my dress. I hadn't brushed my hair!  Told you we were veging out!

Forgot to show you our present from Coralie, she made it herself and she drew around each grandchilds hand!  Isn't it lovely?

On the Friday Verity and Steve were bringing Saskia back and we were meeting them in Kiddicare in Peterborough to buy the pram/ pushchair for the  new  grandbaby.  Only 10 weeks to go!  We have sort of made a tradition that we buy the first grandchild's  travel system. We took Ellie with us as she wanted to help choose!  It took a long time even though they already sort of knew what they wanted.  In the end they chose a Quinny system.  They chose a french navy pram, black pushchair and sort of grey and purple car seat.  Baby will go in the pram for the first few months and of course the car seat and then they will convert it into the pushchair.  They were really pleased  with it all.

They had to try it out when they got home so here are some more views.  Won't be long until baby is in it.

The following day it was time for Saskia to go home so after dropping me at the dog rescue, Simon drove her back to Leicester.  I think she had a good Christmas but I think she was happy to be back at her own house and I know she was looking forward to celebrating her birthday with her friends the following day.  Happy Birthday Saskia!  27 years old!!!  How can that be possible?

With Saskia gone, we have been just relaxing and gradually getting the house back to normal.  Simon has been busy in his garage and I have done some sewing.  It was a different kind of Christmas.  Quieter. I do miss the old days when they were all young.  Those were magical times.  I am grateful though that we were able to spend time with all of our family.

Next year there will be one more person in our family.  I can't wait.