We have a date!!

It's been such a long wait, a very long wait. We brought Charlie home in June 2008 and he was legally ours by the November. We brought Courtney home in November last year and as I said in my last post there has been delay after delay with her application. Firstly her birth certificate was lost by Social services and it took 8 weeks to get a new one, our Social Worker was on holiday when we wanted to submit so we had to wait for her to come back to check over the application, then after quite a long time I rang to find out what was happening only to be told that there were no photos included with the Social Workers reports (I emailed them to both Social Workers and I know they're an important part of the application) so our application was deferred. In the end I emailed them directly to the court myself. Courtney's Social Worker has now gone on maternity leave, we were meant to have got to court before she finished but finally yesterday we had a letter with the date! Courtney will be legally ours on the 11th of July! we then have a celebration hearing on the 12th of August to 'rubber stamp' it. Normally this hearing is 2 weeks after but we're being delayed because the judge is going on holiday! Hey ho, at least we now finally have the date and I can finally take the hearts off her beautiful little face♥

Scrapbooking update

I always forget to share my scrapbooking, I am still going strong and am more or less caught up at the moment! I'm finding it harder to scrap now we have 2 children and I'm usually too tired to go into my craft room at night these days, LOL! But, I still go to my (fantastic) crop at Chorley once a month and usually dedicate Saturday nights to scrapping. I'm also still exploring digi scrapping and quite enjoy being able to just sit at the computer, scrap a little and then save a project to come back to. When I'm in the position like at the moment where I only have 2 or 3 layouts to create to catch up I get a spur on and work until I'm up to date! :D (I'm sorry Courtney's face is still hearted out, we are so frustrated at the moment, we have had delay after delay of getting to court, mainly due to Social Services but the court are behind at the moment too, one day, hopefully very soon, I will be able to reveal our beautiful little girl)
So here's some recent work, I find it so much easier these days to find inspiration from the Internet and books. Some of these are my own work, some are inspired by people and some are scraplifts! One of the digitals, the Royal wedding, was a quickpage, all I had to do was add the photo and journaling! Thank you to all the people who inspire me!

Rose Queen

This weekend is the 'Rose Queen' weekend at church. Today was the procession and crowning and tomorrow is an open air service in honour of the queen. This was the first time we've been involved with the weekend as last year we were on holiday. The smaller children are encouraged to go in fancy dress, disappointingly only 6 did and that included Charlie and Courtney! never mind they seemed to enjoy it and that was the main thing. The location was changed for the event as St. Peter's was soggy! St James's (the sister church and the one we attend) has a hall and car park so was the better option with a day like today! The 'royalty' lined up first then we joined the procession with the Sunday School. There was a band from Liverpool leading us, they were really good and I enjoyed listening to them on the way around. Once we were back at church it was the crowning ceremony, it was very regal! The retiring queen gave a lovely speech and during her reigning year she'd raised £10,000 for charity! After the crowning the children who had dressed up went up to the front of church and were presented with some sweeties. At the end there was a fete but it was very busy so we didn't stay for that, opting for a cup of tea at home instead! LOL!

One little boy.........one big adventure!

Charlie has been visiting his new school today and has really enjoyed it, so much so he asked when we were leaving why he had to come home, LOL! He has met his new teachers and the classroom is bright and cheerful, it's very big and has lots of fun looking things to do! They even have a fish tank which Courtney really enjoyed looking at!
This evening Mark and I are attending the parents meeting where we will find out a bit more about uniforms and settling in times, they do half days for the first few weeks.

Here is Charlie just before we set off! (He wants to know why we live so far away from his school, bless him, we live on the same road, LOL!)

Father's Day

We have just returned from a lovely week away in Ireland, I will post more about it and some photos in a few days when i've had a chance to edit them.
I hadn't realised when we booked the holiday that Father's Day fell on the day we came home so I had to be super organised! A few days before we went away Charlie, Courtney and myself got creative in the craft room and made Daddy and Grandad a card. We then went shopping for pressies and wrapped them before we left!
So yesterday morning we had a lovely pressie opening session at the breakfast table, also with Mark's Dad who was on holiday with us. It was just a little unfortunate that it did fall on the day we came home because we did more or less just spend the day travelling but we stopped at The County in Carnforth for a nice Father's Day tea when we were almost home.
Happy Father's Day Mark, Charlie and Courtney are super lucky to have a Daddy like you!♥

I hate saying goodbye!

......although really it was more of 'A bientot' (French for see you soon) Our lovely friends Jen and Grant and their children Daniel and Noah are moving to New Zealand next week and today was our final goodbye before they go. Grant very kindly looked after Charlie and Courtney so that Jen and I could go out for lunch.


We came back and relieved Grant! Jen and I then took all 4 children to their local Park, Lowther Park. It's a beautiful park and the play area was excellent! Jen and I even had a go!! LOL! We had a walk in the sunshine and all too soon it was time to go. We were very brave and managed only a few tears, there were a few more in the car once Jen had gone! Good luck to Jen, Grant, Daniel and Noah in your new life, I will miss you so much but know this is the right move for you and we'll be there either next year or the year after!





Jen, I know you'll read this......please note the lack of embarrassing pictures! I do have some and a video! I will use them if you embarrass me on your blog, LOL!!!

Giggly Feet!

My friend Sarah bought me a voucher for my birthday to have my feet nibbled!! I've seen these places and have wondered whether I fancied it or not and by having the voucher it was a great reason to try it! Even better we found out that Monday's are half price days so Sarah could come with me! Is this where I have to admit that I yelped first, LOL!! It was a very funny sensation, the fish really do have a good nibble! My feet feel fabulous now though, I'm really pleased I tried it.

Learning to ride his bike!