Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Happy 6th birthday Izzy, another year ticked off - finally! You know you are getting older when you have to go to school / work on your birthday, so while we were woken by Izzy singing happy birthday to herself, it was normal routine other than present opening (shared - Izzy still very generous, letting Abi open as many as she does) as soon as everyone was up.  As ever we struggle to think of things to get the girls, but this year we pitched it well with a combination of mini dinosaurs (always a hit with Izzy), Swingball (hasn't lasted the weekend after Glenn had a go and "whacked it really hard Mummy") and Nerf Guns.  As you might imagine it was the Nerf Guns which immediately got taken out and we then had a manic 15 mins before getting dressed of Abi and Izzy shooting us at close range, before Glenn started to get his own back.  The biggest mistake was probably letting Glenn order the upgrades - Nerf machineguns will be arriving tomorrow...

Last day of the Easter holidays, and the last holiday for a while where I will have so much time to spend with the girls. Despite that sadness,we are all looking forward to getting back to the school routine. The girls are missing their friends and teachers and we are missing having the daily structure...and some free time!  The whole holiday has been a bit manic and so this weekend we have tried to calm it down a little with some success. We've had a lovely long weekend, with a great mix of quiet time, parties, bonfires and friends to play. Yesterday was Izzy's 6th birthday party. While I can happily say I was organised enough to get it arranged, invite people and get a caterer sorted, I'm ashamed to say I confused everyone over the timing and put 3pm on the invite and then told everybody who confirmed that it was a 3.30 start. This meant we had a staggered but amusing start, and the party stretched out a bit longer than planned for some.  Izzy ha...

It has been a lovely Spring day today with wall to wall sunshine - perfect for the girls to get outside and make the most of the garden.  We are really beginning to see the house come into it's own as the good weather develops and in particular we can't help but smile as everyone gets used to having so much more outdoor space. The upside of the good weather is both girls getting lots of fresh air. The downside is that in chasing around, climbing over and under everything they are covered in bruises. Tonight as they sat in the bath I couldn't tell whether they were battered or just plain dirty - probably a bit of both! The land of make believe continues to reign and this afternoon the girls were once again Doctors and Nurses in their own surgery (which was located at the bottom of the garden).  Queue lots of walking around with uniforms on, chatting and comparing notes about patients as they went!  It's clear at the moment that the idea of being a doctor is p...

After a long journey back from Taunton (my fault - Friday afternoon in the Easter holidays was never going to be a good time to use the A303...) we are all back together at home again, bliss.  We got back from a great week in Crete on Sunday evening and since then it feels like we haven't stopped.  The girls had a hectic day on Monday and then Mum and Dad turned up on Tuesday to fit some curtains and they all went back to Taunton before I joined them on Wednesday afternoon. This meant Abi, Izzy, Ben and Laurie have had 3 days of uninterrupted playing together which they have absolutely loved, and made the most of.  Add to this the fact that Mum and Dad have an orphaned lamb (Vespa, above) which is very tame and always hungry and they couldn't have asked for a better couple of days.  I think I'll wait a few days to break the joyful news to Mum and Dad that they spent a good part of the journey home asking when they could return! We came...

And, relax...  We are in Crete for a week of (fingers crossed) early summer sun and so far the weather has been reasonably kind to us. There have been a few hiccups; me thinking I'd booked a villa with a heated pool (nope), no hot water on day one (not our fault and quickly rectified) and there bring probably less than more open at this time in the year, but all in all none of that is insurmountable. This is the first time we have flown with both girls so it was a proper adventure for them to get here. It felt less like an adventure for us when we realised that the 7am flight on the day the clocks go forward meant us getting up at what would normally be 3:45am, but both girls coped brilliantly. Even Izzy , normally such a sleep monster, was up and smiling at the due hour.  Easyjet had managed to miscalculate by some magnitude the number of staff they would need on the first major travel day of the Easter holidays, so we entered Gatwick to an enormous queue of grumpy tra...

I hope our daughters appreciate just how lucky they are... Glenn has been looking over the past few months for a buggy for the girls (well, he says it's for them, I'm not quite so sure) and came across a complete bargain on Ebay so snapped it up.  So on Friday they came home to a fully fledged, petrol engined 80cc buggy - you should have seen Abi's face! I'm not so convinced but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears.  Within moments they had jumped in and with Abi driving, set off around the garden.  First it was all quite sedate but after a few circles Abi got the hang of it and before you could say "There goes the Stig" she was off.  Much as I think they are going to wreck the lawn, I had to smile as they raced around having so much fun together.  Izzy is still too short - she can't see over the steering wheel and get her feet to the pedals at the same time so Abi has to help - health and safety nightmare! So that was Friday.  On Saturday they got up ...

You know you are an adult when your birthday passes by as just another day.  I woke up to a chorus of happy birthday from Abi (obviously it was way too early for Izzy) and when I asked as a joke whether I should expect to go down to a kitchen full of balloons and flowers, it was pointed out to me that I needed to walk Scooby so that cards could be written... Both girls quickly got into the spirit and I came home to a whole selection of cards, bought and hand written and all lovely.  We then had a conversation about what I might want for my birthday to which I answered "I don't need anything".  Abi said something which I misheard as "All you need is a 'warm moment'..." and actually that sums it up perfectly - my ideal present these days is as many warm moments with my family as possible. This week has been gloriously sunny and the house is really coming into it's own.  The garden is bathed in sunshine in the morning and the terrace is a s...