We went to the Luminarium

An explanation of the post below

(since I had to explain it Rich)

The exercise was 'draw a story from the Old Testament'
My picture is (obviously) of Moses parting the Red Sea. The blue is the sea and the tiny brown bit is Moses' stick.

The children do not get their artistic talent from me

- Stella W. (6)

Cpie Plays Drums

& Jpie plays gamecube

















& Kpie removes old patio

Baby Budin Goes to Market

Kid Bupp stays at home.

Budin takes a rest

Work still going on in the garden. Rich and Kpie spent most of yesterday outside and Jpie and Cpie went out in the afternoon. Children were banned from coming in again because they were too muddy.

Budin fell asleep in a picnic basket and Kpie drank his coffee for him.



You can tell it's Budin because he is shy and always covers his eyes with his hands/wings. Bupp is usually found in heap on the floor somewhere.

Peanut Day

No blogging for ages but I feel like blogging the Nut Challenge while it is fresh in my mind.

Kpie has been sensitive to nuts for a long time. Since 2005 she has had no scary reactions.
At her last appointment - in April - she had a skin reaction to peanut still but only a minor reaction to almond.

She was happy to have a food challenge to see if she no longer had a true allergy (rather than just a skin reaction - the size of the swelling was borderline). I thought she might worry a bit more but she was fine yesterday when we went to buy some nuts to take.

We arrived at the hospital at 9.30 this morning and she had EMLA on both hands. After talking to loads and loads of staff members and repeating her allergy history loads and loads of times she was finally taken off to have a cannula inserted in her hand. Doctor inserted in one hand, missed vein. Then in other hand, missed other vein. Kpie by this time getting a little bothered and was sent back to ward for a rest. Seconds after arriving back at her bed doctor 2 turned up and tried to put cannula in hand 1 & missed. Doctor 2 decided veins not looking good on back of hand but brilliant veins on arm. She hadn't had any anaesthetic on her arm but he was sure her veins were good and "100% will get it in" missed. Poor Kpie :( - she said it hurt, but she is tough and allowed him to try her other arm. Finally worked! But other arm was her right arm which then made it difficult for her to bend her arm to do any craft or drawing which had been entertaining her for the first couple of hours in the morning.

Nut Challenge finally began at 12. She managed the first crumbs okay but had a bit of an itchy tongue after 2 larger crumbs - which went away after she had some juice. After 2 large crumbs she started to get a bit dozy and wanted to lie down and sleep. She then had 1/8 of a peanut. I read to her for a bit, but when I had finished the story noticed that her eye was swollen. She hadn't handled any of the nut and so challenge continued with 1/4 of peanut. After 1/4 peanut she started to say her tummy hurt then sat up and vomited, vomited, vomited, vomited lots and lots and lots all over the ward. Challenge stopped.

After 20-30 minutes she was still feeling tired and she had started to swell up on her stomach and back, arms & neck. She was given piriton for swelling. She also started to get wheezy & was given salbutamol. After another 15 minutes she was given steroids. She almost immediately perked up and went back to playroom.

We stayed for another 4 hours while she was observed & observed & observed. She seemed fine when we left and she slept well last night.

Would I do it again? Absolutely yes. It was a bit frightening for her but I am glad she had that frightening experience somewhere where it could be dealt with immediately. She now knows exactly what will happen if she eats nuts - and it isn't nice :(. Before she only had a vague recollction of travelling in an ambulance when she was 2. She also knows what peanuts taste like & look like (we have avoided them so much that I'm not sure she did know what they looked like before). I am glad that we have avoided nuts successfully so far.

The little 2 have skin prick tests coming up soon. If they have any borderline skin reactions to nut I will consider having a food challenge for them in a few years. We were offered a food challenge for Kpie last year but 5 seemed too little. This year she understood what it would be happening and she wasn't too anxious while the challenge was happening.

She now will have an epipen - before her reactions were classed as mild because she hadn't had any breathing dfficulties but now they are moderate because she had a wheezy chest. Hopefully she won't need it.

March & April - in brief!

It's so long since I've written any blog & blogger looks different!

March was busy - we had lots of birthdays & lots of visitors.
April we have been away for lots of weekends.

Garden is getting there!

Some pictures coming soon!

Melrose

Made it safely to Melrose and back.
Arrived late - I hate being late anywhere.
I had thought I might struggle this year without Rich or Barbara to look after me! but I was fine. Didn't get in as much socialising as I would have liked, Cpie didn't go to sleep as well as I might have hoped in the first half of the week. Did finally manage to get some games played by the end though! There were plenty of people I hadn't seen since last Melrose that I would have liked to talk to more but didn't find an opportunity to. Hopefully will get more chance at summer camp - if it happens.
Children had great week. Jpie especially - there really were a lot of 4 year olds! Cpie keeps talking about her new friend. Kpie enjoyed felting and playing her violin. All 3 enjoyed the snow. Bumpable Cpie shows off her sledging injuries to everyone. Jpie really loved sledging. Kpie complained about the cold but was very excited to watch the snow from inside.

This weekend we measured the garden and drew up an ambitious Garden Plan. We also bought a fork and spade, work starts next week! Hoping to pop into O&Gs at some point to raid their shed for tools!

More snow!!

More snow today. We stayed in for most of it. It is too hard to remember what we did without photos.
Little pies had a good watch of Cbeebies. Jpie wanted to do more worksheets. Kpie did not want to get out of her pyjamas all day. Cpie played with Selly and Tutu and Ballalina.
Jpie told me that 4+4 is the same as 4 lots of 2s. Cpie told us that there is only one Tutu and that Tutu is not 4.

Cpie and Jpie helped cook dinner.

Pies all went to bed.

Frankie phoned and we did an over the phone comparison of my Welcome to Ocado pack and her Welcome to the Baptists pack. We also swapped snow stories.

I hope that it is clearer tomorrow so that we can get to violin. People were skidding all over our road but I suppose that once I hit the main road things will be better! Not so sure about ballet. It is so high and I used to slip all the way up when we lived near there!

Green and Purple deliveries

We had our Tesco delivery cancelled on Monday - due to snow. Which was fine - we weren't really expecting the driver to come out in the snow. I am cross that there is no system for emailing customers - or even phoning them. We were called at 9.50pm - the delivery was due between 7-9.
I am also cross that 2 lots of payments were taken out of my bank account and then the wrong amount was refunded - twice - first an underpayment and then an over payment.

I decided not to reorder from Tesco. Asda and Sainsbury's didn't have a suitable delivery slot. Morrisons don't seem to deliver. So I went to Ocado where delivery cost £0.00 if you choose the right slot!

I lke the website - searching for items is easy and it looks pretty. They don't seem to have the range of products that Tesco does and I couldn't work out how to 'browse aisles' like you can on tesco website. I could get the same shopping list that I had for my Tesco shop though for almost the same price.

That was last night - more about Ocado later.

Today I mostly did learnings with the pies - but not before veg man arrived with a box of purple and green vegetables.



I should have cancelled delivery really, but in all my Tesco crossness on Monday I missed the deadline! Rich will eat it all when we are away.

Learnings:
Kpie really wanted to paint a 'paint it yourself moneybox' that she had been given for Christmas


She got cross after a little while because she realised it wasn't going to look like the picture on the box!
Jpie wanted to do some handwriting worksheets and Cpie wanted to sing along to her nursery rhyme CD.

Cpie had a little nap and Kpie and Jpie and I made block crayons from some stick crayons.

Before:




After:

Jpie making sure he doesn't pass up the opportunity to be in a funny photo!

My phone beeped and Ocado had texted to say that Jessica would be arriving in Strawberry van between 8.30 and 9.30 (Hurrah for one hour delivery slots and Strawberry vans! How much more exciting is Strawberry van than Cabbage van - probably not much actually, only time will tell!) and that all items were onboard (this is useful!)

Cpie woke up and drew with the crayons for a while and then helped me make some bread.



She is covered in ketchup - from a ketchup and bread snack - we were still out of food!

After dinner big 2 pies went to sleep and Cpie stayed in the kitchen singing along to her nursery rhyme CD.

Oma phoned to see how I was getting on with the sewing machine, she wanted to check I knew how to change the length of the stitches :)

Jessica from Ocado phoned to check if she could come a bit early!! She arrived in the right place! and delivered the shopping in colour coded bags:



- and orange too for 'fridge' but that doesnt match the veg box deliveries (the carrots were at the bottom!). It really *did* deserve a picture!

I like Ocado. I like the text message. I like the van names. I like the newspaper that came with the order. I like that I can do refunds online. I like the colour coded bags. I like the free bottle of wine voucher on the receipt. I like having food in my house!
I am going to order from Ocado again :)

I forgot the rules!

1. Each blogger starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

3. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and to read your blog.

5. For the recipients, leave a comment for the person who tagged you, so they can go and read your answers.

I'm tagging 6 people:

Avie

Sarah

Kirsty

Cat

Anne-Marie

Barbara (restart your blog!)

8 random things about me

I was tagged by Clare ages ago.

1. I really hate being late - especially when I means I have to go through a door I have never been through before, or park in a new place.

2. I have only taken 1 driving test. It was on 24th October 1997 and I was 17. I passed. That night I went to see The Full Monty with my school friends.

3. I wish I saw more of my sister. She lives too far away. We spend about 8 hours a week phoning each other - it is not enough chatting time.

4. My favourite month is September.

5. I'm not a vegetarian.

6. My children often call me Stella. For some reason this seems to bother a lot of people - I'm not sure why. I don't mind.

7. I love Taransay. I would choose the Western Isles over any other holiday destination.

8. I work for AQA (the question answering service – not the exam board). I spend too much time answering questions when I should be going to sleep!

Some recent pictures

Cpie and Jpie in the snow this morning






Cpie with her cousins:





Kpie reading

Look at me blogging all the time!

I am trying to keep my blog up to date! Today we had a visit from Kirsty & co., which was lovely since we haven't seen each other for ages and ages. So nice to have a good catch up over coffee :). Children all seemed to be getting on OK too.

Had another look at Cherry Menlove's blog - Avie showed me it at the weekend. Am not sure if it is getting a bit late to think of my word for the year - but decided it seemed like a good idea. I'm going for decorate. Something I don't seem to be getting around to yet. Will try and decorate the house a bit more this year. Below is a picture of my first bit of decorate:

Pictures are so difficult to take through the viewer thing - I don't even know the terminology! The bulbs we grew this year for Christmas presents - we have a few left and they are dotted around our house. They smell lovely when we come into the house.
My new curtain fabric also arrived today & need to collect Oma's sewing machine soon so I can start making them!!

I could do with a camera

My poor blog looks uninteresting with no photos at all.
I do have a camera but it has no longer a backlight on the viewing thing so I am finding it too much effort to take photos. :(

It is on my things to buy list.

Avie Weekend

We had our usual busy Friday - violin in the morning and dancing in the afternoon. We went to Ki and Ch after dancing for a curry start to the weekend from my new favourite take away. Had a lovely time with An and Ri there too - you don't need board games for a fab evening (I had almost forgotten....(!))

Whizzed back home mid morning because -
Avie visited this weekend. We didn't do much but had a lovely coffee drinking time :). Avie brought her cooking brains and made a yum chicken dinner for us on Saturday. The pies, as always, were delighted to see her. I did plenty of ironing - Kpie informed Avie that it is 'non-stop washing and ironing in our house' !!

Avie left after lunch today. I took Jpie to Coffee Ladies. He ate lots of marshmallows and had a little play. I drank more coffee and we started to plan Ju's babyshower for Friday!!!

Playgroup with R&R

Pies are all upstairs watching Secret Show on iPlayer.

I woke up far too grumpy as a result of being up too late last night. Glad that I had arranged to collect R&R at 9.30 or I can't imagine I would have woken up at all!

Put Jpie and Cpie in the car and drove round to try and find Ra and Ru - it was cold this morning so hoped they weren't going to be waiting too long. Luckily we arrived at collection place at the same time! Drove into Sheffield to get to the FreeRange playgroup which meant I had a good chance to talk to Ra in the car. Cpie and Ru tickled Jpie till he got cross!

Playgroup was really good - just wish it was a bit nearer - or that we could implement a similar setup in our local group - we have a lot of preschoolers there too! I think next time I will take Kpie too - she will be the oldest by quite a way but I think she will be OK if I take some craft along (she is usually happy to play with littles for a bit too). It is nice to go to something for Cpie, who seems to be dragged along with the others most all the time. Hopefully will be able to go again in 2 weeks.

I then had a bunch of things that needed doing in town, which took up the rest of the afternoon.

Need to think about making something to eat. Rich is out at football & I forgot to get the frozen stuff out yesterday/earlier :(.

Too late to be awake

and not very flylady.
Got up and dressed earlyish. Earlier than yesterday at least. Pies were up, dressed, breakfasted and out in the garden far too early. I ironed in the living room where I could see them playing. Cpie spilled the bubbles she was playing with, felt too cold and came inside again. The bigger two weren't far behind.
They all decided to play with kerplunk. Kpie gave up trying to put the sticks in after one go though and so they shoved them all in the middle instead. Then they were playing some trading game where they were swapping the marbles and sticks around.
Jpie and Cpie then played Dotty Dinosaurs for a bit.

Kpie had a good long violin practice. She is really hoping to move on to something new at her lesson this week and has been practising lots!
Bigger two went for a walk to the post box with Rich. Cpie helped me cook. We read some stories too.

And I really should be asleep because we have new group tomorrow.

Day turned out OK

Kpie was upset that we didn't go to Highfields. I am fed up with driving in to Sheffield to get to groups all the time and we are going to a group on Thursday - really didn't want to drive in twice - and we were expecting visitors.
She still had a fun time with the visitors though. Ry is growing up too quickly!! Ri came too. Rich and Ri looked at the computer for ages & I think fixed it. Pies played playdough and did beading and played with the recycling lorry.
When they left I tidied up the living room. Came accross lots of tiny stickers of animals which Jpie had been given in his stocking. Yesterday the pies had been 'cleaning' - they told me this a few times - and, it turns out, sticking the tiny animals on everything that was clean - so that they could remember. I expect I will be finding them for weeks!