Just like Daddy!

Courtney and I went to see Daddy at Carpet Right this morning, Mark is a carpet fitter and was preparing the carpets for his jobs, Courtney was helping to roll a carpet!


It's a treat to see Daddy at work, Courtney's visit reminded me of Charlie visit from last year! See here!

Assembly video

Whilst we were walking home from school Charlie was singing one of the songs from assembly, I asked him if I could video him at home, enjoy!♥

About our senses assembly

We got a letter home from school last week that the Reception and Year 1 children were doing the school assembly on the theme of senses. There was no way I could miss it! The assembly was this morning and I VERY proudly watched my son joining in all the songs and he presented his 'feely' picture. The assembly was so well put together and there were funny bits in it too where the headteacher had to put his hand inside a box and guess what he was touching, it was baked beans!!! For posterity I have to note that I filled up as soon as he started to sing and tears tricked down my cheeks, I've waited so long to enjoy these moments, I can't describe how I felt at that moment, just total joy and pride.
The funny thing is I'd decided to leave my handbag at home but at the last moment thought to take my camera just in case! I never really thought there would be opportunity to take a pic but knew I'd regret not taking it if there was! At the beginning of the assemble the head teacher announced that no photography was allowed during the assembly but we may take photos of our own children after! So here's Charlie with his 'feely' picture♥

Snow much fun!!

We've had a really good day! We'd booked a Christmas experience at Chill Factore in Manchester primarily to try and capture the Christmas card photo but also so Charlie and Courtney could have a play in snow! They also got an early visit to Father Christmas!
It was quite busy when we arrived but most people were skiing, having lessons or one of the other activities. I'd say the snow play area had just about the right number in. The whole experience thing is VERY good, the play area had several things, a house, a slide, climbing things, a little slope for sliding down with inflatables and a couple of staff who were playing with the children. There wasn't really enough snow though to build a snowman as Charlie had hoped but that didn't matter. For the first 10 minutes or so they both played really nicely but Charlie had a little slip and it frightened him and his confidence dwindled. We tried and the staff tried to encourage him but I think he'd had enough then. Courtney was also getting ready to leave. We had a little break and had bought some headbands earlier in the week to accessorise the Christmas photo and they did provide a good distraction for a few minutes but there was little, or in truth no posing to be had as you can see from the top left photo, little monkeys! We had another quick play and then left the play area and changed from our groovy snow boots back into our own shoes and made our way over to Father Christmas's grotto! Before we went into the grotto area Peppa Pig paid a visit! Charlie went straight up to her but Courtney wasn't so keen. She did go up after a little persuasion and happily had her photo taken with her.
I think the grotto area was great, the best I've seen! They'd set 3 little tables up in the middle of a queuing area for the children to be entertained whilst the adults queued, the staff did activities with them and when it was our turn we just had to call the children up. Charlie was very good with Father Christmas and told him he'd like a new bendy bus for Christmas as his has broken (I'm sure that can be arranged) Courtney was a little reluctant again but did go up to him with me. We had a family photo with Father Christmas which is very good and that now is going to be the Christmas card photo so I can't share it! To finish off our adventure we had a Costa treat!
We then went to Salford to pick Maddie up from Uni and went to the Lowry shopping place, I really liked it in there and we got a couple of Christmas pressies. After that we walked over to Media City and Charlie had his photo taken with a big Pudsey sticker, the BBC building is all decorated up ready for Children in Need next week! I'm going to print the photo off for him to take to school on Friday. We went to a dinosaur exhibition thing, it was a bit basic but Charlie liked it and that's the main thing! There was an area that had giant IPads set into tables, they were fun, we all played on the drawing app!
I was surprised Charlie and Courtney didn't sleep on the way home, I was shattered, LOL! Courtney did have a little nap but no more than 10 minutes! They both went straight to sleep at bedtime though!

Lest we forget. 11.11.11

On my hoop!

I don't think I've shared my current cross stitch WIP (work in progress.) To be honest I don't normally stitch Christmassy things, I truly love Christmas and even more so now we can share it with Charlie and Courtney, they make it magical! I've kind of felt like it was a lot of work to only be displayed for a short time each year BUT I realise now that was silly! I came across a gorgeous 'Fizzy Moon' design in my cross stitch magazine and immediately it jumped out at me as being Charlie and Courtney! I decided there and then I was going to stitch it! I bought some really nice fabric last year, it's ecru with a gold sparkle, I thought it would be perfect for this project but when I put the bear colour threads on it I thought they'd be lost, so I rang 'Sew and Sew' to see if there was a white fabric with silver sparkle and there was so I ordered it up! I started stitching it on Saturday (the 29th) and it's coming along nicely! I had a mini frustration yesterday, I thought I was a stitch out, there's nothing more frustrating than one pesky stitch out but whilst stitching today I realised my mistake, I'd actually only missed a red stripe on the scarf! Phew! Easily rectified! So this is my piece so far...... (you can just about see the sparkle on the fabric at the bottom where the flash has caught it)

.....and this is what it'll look like finished! I'm saying it's Courtney on the left and Charlie on the right!!

Happy Anniversary Courtney!

♥Today is a year since we met our sweet, precious little girl!♥
Trust me, Courtney is smiling, for some reason this is the face she pulls when we do a self timer photo!! Charlie used to have a similar smile face! Don't you just love the Wotsit stained faces, bless them! We realised and tried to take more pics but this was the best of the bunch, LOL!!