Our little holiday :)

As I mentioned last blog we were away for Pebble's birthday. We went to Center Parcs for 4 days with Hubby's Mother. It's much more affordable when you do no mid week slot in the very off peak season! 

We mainly go for the swimming pool to be honest. The last time we went I was pregnant with Pebble and Nemo was about 13/14 months old, however this time Nemo could do much more swimming. 

They both had a fantastic time. We were in the swimming area 4-5 hours most days and by the end of the week Nemo could swim on his own with his floating jacket. 

So here's a little flavour of the week 

Every day after a morning of swimming Pebble would fall asleep on me. She so rarely does this it was a real treat :) 

We got these photos of the children by the pool photographer. To be fair the one of Pebble is pretty funny but sure when can you usually get a under water photo!! 

Our accommodation was right by a large pond. On the first day we fed the ducks then quickly regretted it as we soon had a mass gathering of ducks on our porch! 

  O ipbk.    

It poured with rain on every day but one day which was really cold but sunny. It enabled us to get out the house for a walk and visit to the park.

We also took a trip to the pottery painting cafe. We did this last time and came out with two mugs. 

We had the most messy table by far in the cafe! 

This time I did a jug *with Pebble* and hubby did a mug with Nemo. To be fair hubby perhaps let Nemo have greater control of the project then I let Pebble! 

This is how they came out 

We had such a great time with the kids I can't wait to go away again :) 

Pebble is 1!

So that time has come for me to annoy people by saying that silly thing that many parents say "where has a year gone" and "it seems like only yesterday she was born".

My little baby Pebble is now a 1 year old, to me she is my little newborn baby however as I see her start to take steps and talk I realise that she is definately growing up! 

Here is my little Pebble in her first few minutes. I know I am biased but I have always thought she is so beautiful.

Here is my baby girl now standing! She has such a sweet character. A little more in need of reassurance than Nemo (or Mr Independant) and very cuddly!

I feel imensely happy to have my two lovely children. 

We got Pebble some presents although she showed relatively little interest in it. (Nemo was on the other hand pretty excited!) Here they are enjoying the presents together!

We got this baby rocker for Pebble and Nemo was so sweet taking turns playing on it with Pebble. He voluntarily got off to give Pebble a turn and would rock her :) 

I couldn't resist buying this for Pebble, although Hubby was not quite so sure!

I saw a little girl wearing one before I was pregnant with Pebble and thought it was so sweet! 

We were actually in Center Parcs for Pebble's birthday with Hubby's Mother. This meant bringing all the birthday things with us including the cake in various bits. 

Having given it some thought I eventually decided on doing a Totoro cake for Pebble. I think this is because there is a very cute girl in the film who falls asleep on Totoro's (this large cuddly looking character) stomach and this just seemed in keeping with Pebble's character. 

I prepared various bits of the cake at home the weekend before. 

Soot sprites

Flowers

Leaves 

Wood sprites 

Mushrooms

I also made a top for a tree stump and baked a good old Victoria sponge!

I packed all these elements up and bought them with us on holiday. 

So luckily I did not attempt to make anything at center parcs because their badly equipped kitchens I suspect are a less then subtle attempt to get get you to eat out all the time! 

I rolled out and covered the cake in brown icing for the tree stump.

I then used buttercream icing which brown food colouring to make tree root type things and put the tree stump topping on top! 

Then I piled on everything else and this was how it looked 

I tried to base the girl on top on Pebble and although far from perfect I was quite pleased with it for my first person attempt! 

Both Pebble and Nemo appreciated the cake! Despite prompting Nemo didn't say happy birthday to his sister and just said Happy instead, it was quite sweet. 

We had a lovely day swimming with the kids during the day. Being on holiday was a great way to spend it. Here are a couple of pictures of us with Pebble on her big day :) 

Pebbles just had a feed on the land train and was pretty impressed with herself!

Having evening snuggles with Daddy :) 

Moaning and magic :)

This week has felt a bit ugh! 

Pebble and Nemo have been under the weather since Sunday when we had a disastrous trip swimming. We try to take the children swimming before church on Sunday. Nemo and Pebble both had colds and weren't their usual selves but we decided to take take them anyway!

Bad idea...before we even got into the pool Nemo kept saying "no swimming", he has never said this before. Now if I was a really good parent I probably would have respected his choice, however we had paid to get in and he always loves swimming so on went his swimming costume anyway. Now I'm not going to lie he needed quite a lot of persuasion to get into the pool but once he did get in he enjoyed himself. Pebble on the other hand was fine going in, had a great time as usual until  about 15 minutes in when she's just desperately scratching at her head and crying. At this point Nemo started to get upset too so we went out.

Pebble's had problems with psoriasis on her head (which hubby has) but the swimming pool water seems to set it off. The doctor nicely gave us some pretty horrendous smelling shampoo which has to an extent helped the psoriasis however has set of the eczema on her skin (she gets that from me). Fantastic....

(We've taken to bathing Pebble in the sink so we can apply her shampoo every night without racking up a massive water bill!) 

Anyway Pebble screamed so loud getting changed after swimming I thought my ear drums might burst and Nemo was tired and moany so we gave up and put them in bed. (Not brave enough to face church I'm afraid!) 

I made a roast dinner on Sunday and thought that after a sleep and a roast the kids would be pretty happy. 

Oh how niave!

So yes Sunday wasn't exactly relaxing... 

 I went to have another blood test on Monday (the results are normal yay!) went shopping for Pebble's birthday!

I ended up going on a complete tangent and getting Pebble's next car seat. Nemo has a rearfacing car seat for up to 4 years however Pebble is starting to grow out of her baby one. I managed to get a good deal on an extended rearfacing joie car seat and base although it still made my purse feel a bit sorry for itself! 

Of course Pebble was having a day where she wanted to be held, constantly (see below picture). Additionally Nemo wasn't impressed that in the toy shop it had a train train on a table with a transparent lid so he couldn't play with it. This resulted in trying to talk to the car seat lady whilst holding a crying Pebble and intermitedly running off after Nemo who was going off to look at toys and having tantrums when I bought him back! By the time I brought the car seat I felt I had achieved some marathon level feat! 

To be fair, this was a self inflicted pain in the bum for me. Attempting to buy a car seat with two unwell children on your own is really just asking for trouble!

Tuesday saw us go to our usual group. Poor Pebble spent the entire time on my lap. I just felt so sorry for her, she was obviously feeling really under the weather and just couldn't get comfortable. Luckily she perked up for a prearranged shopping trip with my friend for an outfit. Nemo and her son (a similar age) had a great time running around tickling each other (and pressing the emergency button in the lift....) however the shopping trip wasn't very productive for my friend who didn't get a thing! 

I finished a dress I had been knitted for Pebble for her birthday only to find that I couldn't get it over her head! 

Pebble and Nemo have both inherited large heads from their Dad! Thankfully I managed to unpick the ribbed edge on the neckline and double crochet round instead which means she can actually put it on yay!

Today Pebble had her first year review. Now even though I know it's a bit silly I always find the health visitor coming a bit pressuring. I want to put on my best Mum face and want the children to do their best perfect children impression! Of course that never happens and today was an embarrassing mix of the children having fights over toys, Pebble crying inconsolably, Nemo having tantrums for seemingly no reason and just generally me looking frazzled whilst I try and talk intelligently about Pebble's development. I filled in this mental health questionnaire and couldn't help but laugh when I saw one of the questions to be "my baby annoys me". Not because generally I find my children annoying at all, but at that exact moment the kids were not playing ball! 

So yes, this week has been pretty tough at times with both children not at their best however there are so many amazing moments mixed in with those tough bits. I read an article once which spoke about how she found being a stay at home mum is an every day rollercoaster with times where she'd want to put the kids up for adoption and times where she's think it's fantastic and would want a million children. I really understand where she's coming from. So having shared my disasters, these are some of my amazing moments 

The potential for snow...

Nemo force feeding his doll Cheerios! 

Realising my daughter is more beautiful then I could have ever imagined. 

Nemo showing that he can be a mans man and be in touch with his feminine side!

Pebble trying to feed off anything...

Pebble showing that she's spent too long watching a Labrador stalking food

Nemo being an awesome big brother 

He even shares toys with his sister.....

                                                             sometimes...