Anglesey

After the court hearing we set took Sylvia, Hughie and my Mum to The Old Bell cafe, (it's our favourite cafe!) for a drink and celebratory cake! It was as lovely as ever and so nice to be together.
Once we'd finished at the cafe we left the grandparents in Lancaster and the 4 of us set off to spend the night away in Anglesey. We arrived at around 3pm, checked into the hotel, freshened up then had a run out to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch which is officially the longest place name in the United kingdom at 58 letters long! We had the obligatory photos taken at the train station and then had a look around the gift shop and tourist information centre where we stamped our passports!



After a good night's sleep we set off to go and see a lighthouse, this was the reason we'd headed to Anglesey because this wasn't any ordinary lighthouse, this lighthouse you could go inside and explore! There are only a handful of lighthouses now that you can go inside so this was a special opportunity. Ever since we saw the lighthouses on holiday in Ireland Charlie has had a real fascination of them, he talks about them constantly so this was definitely his treat! The rain had stopped for us and both children did really well walking the 410 steps to the lighthouse and back (never mind them, it nearly killed me 820 steps!! ) Plus there were 108 steps once were inside the lighthouse!!!!! Courtney wasn't allowed to go up the lighthouse as she's under 1m tall, we didn't know this before we went but they are well set up for littlies and there was a playroom. I went up the lighthouse first with Charlie then he conquered the 108 steps another time taking Daddy up! He loved it, as soon as we got out of the car he was dancing about with excitement, it was a joy for us to watch.

Whilst I was in the playroom with Courtney I looked through a few leaflets and found out there was a model village on Anglesey. I thought it might be fun for Charlie and Courtney so we drove to have a look. It was really good and we had a nice wander around the miniature buildings and at the end there was a playground so we had a little play on there before setting off home.

Have you seen Charlie and Courtney's 'smile' faces, they make me laugh!
We really enjoyed our time at Anglesey, it was the perfect way for us to celebrate being a family of 4 officially!

Her big day......and ours too!

Yesterday morning we went to court to 'rubber stamp' Courtney's adoption. We invited our parents along to join in the celebration hearing. It was a little different to Charlie's in that the Judge didn't speak as much to us and it seemed a little more formal but still it was nice and it's what it means to us more! Courtney Grace is now all ours!♥


It has taken us almost 7 years, going through the adoption process (twice!) is not easy but the rewards are magnificent! Out of our journey we have been blessed with 2 truly beautiful children. When I think back to the IVF and adoption journey we took (over 14 years in total!!), I learnt so many things about patience, about perseverance and about my lovely relationship with Mark, never once was our relationship tested as we were always on the same page. We wanted to be a family so much and now we couldn't be happier.

Sheep in the meadow.......

It's been a little while since I shared some cross stitching, I have been beavering away and have another finish to show you! Do you remember the bunnies I stitched for Charlie earlier in the year......

....and I mentioned I was going to stitch the sheep for Courtney, well I've just finished it this evening.

I am so pleased with both of them, I hadn't stitched on linen before and at times it was a bit of a challenge but it was worth perservering! I am very proud to have stitched them for my children and can't wait to get them framed for them. I hope they will both treasure them for years to come.♥

Maddie's make-up bag!

Courtney had such fun today! Her cousin Maddie came round for a visit and she got a free reign over her make-up bag, that's after she'd ransacked the entire contents of Maddie's bag which contains everything but the kitchen sink, LOL! Personally I think Maddie's crazy, my make up is VERY high up, way out of Courtney's reach!
It was nice that Maddie, Dan and Karin came to visit as Courtney and I were left home alone whilst Charlie went with Daddy to the first game of the football season! They lost!

Skipton Castle

Yesterday Charlie, Courtney and myself had a day trip out to Skipton. The weather didn't look so good as we set off (originally we were going to Blackpool!) It rained almost all of the way there. We stopped off for a mooch at Embsay first before making our way down to the castle just as the sun was starting to come out! It was really interesting there and the leaflet we were given for walking around the castle was brilliant! There were lots of doorways and each were drawn on the leaflet to follow! Charlie and Courtney enjoyed looking out of the windows and shouting in the echoey bits! There were a few tricky steps to maneuver around but both children did brilliantly with them. In the centre of the castle there is a Yew tree which was planted 329 years ago! Elizabeth and I were enthralled by it's twisting trunk! On the way home we called in at Country harvest and picked up Daddy a nice piece of lemon drizzle cake!

CBeebies comes to town!

A couple of months ago we found out that the new CBeebies summer song had been filmed in Morecambe! It has now been released on the channel and Charlie gets very excited every time it's on! Courtney gets excited because he does,LOL! and they both dance around. It's here if you'd like to see it. Look out for the scene with the clock tower (where the little girl is flying a kite - 19secs) Charlie calls it 'Little Big Ben' following our visit to London earlier in the year!
(The video was also filmed in Scarborough, any scenes that are just Alex and Sid are Morecambe, ones where there are 4 presenters are in Scarborough.)

around 10 miles!

I must have been feeling keen this evening, LOL! I met Sarah at the gym and decided to cycle down! It's been a lovely evening and I thought I'd take advantage. We spent just over an hour doing solid exercise. I am amazing myself by starting to jog a little! I'm not a runner, never have been but I can happily manage a full minute jogging (please don't laugh, I did say I'm not a runner, LOL!) I set the treadmill going and walk a minute, run a minute etc and managed 3 minutes of jogging tonight, I then stayed on the treadmill until 10 minutes were up, I then went on the rowing machine for 10 minutes and did the repetition circuit, 20 repetitions per piece of equipment (5 pieces) We finished with a swim and rewarded ourselves with a sauna after! I then kinda realised I had to cycle home too, LOL!! What with doing an hours Zumba class and swim last night too there had better be a new leaner me soon!!!