Happy Birthday Emily!

Happy 7th birthday to my favourite girl in the whole wide world! Can't believe it's been 7 years since she was that little 6lb 12oz baby; she's just so grown up!

She had a good morning, playing on her brand new shiny big girl bike:

And opening lots and lots of presents:

And the many cards, including this 3D Hannah Montana one made by mummy:

And her favourite, a handmade one by Xander:

Happy birthday beautiful girl, hope it's a wonderful day! Love you!

Soft Soft Soft!

What with it being the year of the wedding around here, I've been busy gettinmg everyone suited and booted for the occassions. Anyway, the other day, the suit I'd ordered for Xander for Auntie Laura's wedding turned up:Now, who does he remind me of?!

An Early Birthday

OK, I know; it's been ages between posts yet again! I've been told off by Jen for making her coffee breaks dull so thought I'd better get a post on before I lose all by blog readers! In my defense, I've been wrestling with half term, assignments, preparing for interviews, making wedding invites and tonnes of other stuff so have not been sat on my bum (ha, chance'd be a fine thing!).

Anyway, it's the start of another busy week but it's packed with good stuff. This week is Emily's 7th birthday but, as she's forgone a party in favour of a big present, we had a family Sunday lunch today instead. Rob did an excellent job at cooking us up a feast:

And of course there was cake; baked by Costco but decorated by yours truely:

Emily was very happy:

And requested an extra large piece (like mother like daughter!):

Here's Em with Great Grandad Ron and Nanna:

With Grandma:

With Auntie Gemma and Uncle Dave:

And cuddling up to Xan:

There's a few more birthday things planned this week, including a shopping trip and going out for lunch. And of course, the constant shock to me and Rob that our baby girl's 7 and wondering how on earth that happened!

Yes Mrs Gillard!

This teaching thing is actually starting to seem like a bit of a reality these days. I've been working in school for a while now and I've now started applying for training (with an interview in 9 days, woohoo!).

Anyway, the teacher I work with, Anouska, has been brilliant at supporting me. She's emailed me over notes, taught me the 'buzz' words in teaching, and is gearing my days in school around getting as much different experience with as many different levels of kids as possible.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago when it snowed really heavily, we only had 4 pupils in our class; and so she left me to do a little project with them. The kids have been learning about traditional tales and one of the stories they've been focusing on is Shrek. So, me and the children made some wallpaper for Shrek's house (because of course, with Fiona living there it needed a feminine touch!). Anyway, Anouska took some photos of me working with the kids and emailed them over the other day so I can put them in my teaching portfolio for interviews.

I just had to share me being 'Mrs Gillard'; I love it! Obviously I have to be careful what I publish of the kids so apologies for the blanked out faces. However, you can still tell they're paying attention to me; now why can't I get my own kids to do that!

Measuring out the 'repeat' pattern:

Getting the swamp coloured paint rollered up (though the boys did convince her it wasn't swamp coloured but gold! Bless 'em!)

Our super designer one of a kind wallpaper!

However, I am never going to be a teacher if I sit blogging all day and don't crack on with this assignment!

TTFN!

Bad Bad Bad Blogger!

Bad bad me; it's been almost a week since my last post which is not like me at all. I usually waffle on here at least twice a week! The reason for lack of bloggy time? Busy ain't even the word!

First of all, uni's started again, which means coursework (and getting my head around a new subject!), lectures (on a saturday morning, bleurgh!) and the good old assignments, the first of which I started on today. I'm trying to get ahead as my deferred exam is in April so I need revision time. Add to that that this course seems to have so much work. Last year I could get by with just a few hours a day but this part is a lot of reading so takes forever! So, Xander now goes to nursery 2 days a week so mummy can atleast attempt to get some work in!

Speaking of Billy Jim, I need to offer an apology to my sis-in-law, as I did this to him:

I seem to remember a threat from her of no more dodgy 90s video reminiscing if I ever cut his long blond locks off. But, I decided this weekend to risk it as it was driving me mad and a certain father of his had still not found a barbers to cut it properly. So, I snapped and got the clippers out! If it's any consolation Zo I regretted it the second I did it and was on eBay searching for toddler wigs straight after!

I've also been busy with the teacher training thing. I sent out applications last week to all the local schools about training on the job next January. Anyway, didn't really expect any positive feedback (it's a really competitive programme to get onto) but I have a school that want to talk to me after half term! Yay! So, I've been getting evidence together etc all week and printing out Ofsted reports so I can memorise them.

I've also been back in school one day a week since the New Year. Fortunately I'm with a really helpful teacher who is making sure I get lots of experience with different kids at different levels etc. The only thing is it's a lot to write up, but should prove really valuable.

My birthday present finally turned up...9 months late! It's the Wii Fit, so that I can hopefully get in some sort of shape before Antigua. As you can see though, I seem to have had it hijacked:


Speaking of Antigua, things are really picking up speed with all the wedding preps. I'm in the middle of doing the invites at the moment; the next task is proof reading them and praying I've not made any typos! I also got the replacement ribbon today, after ordering green by mistake! I think i might have been off the invite list if I'd have gone ahead with that! We've only 4 months to go now so need to get passports sorted, insurance etc etc done.

On top of all that, February is shaping up to be an extremely busy month socially. This last weekend I was at my friend Susan's for a Mamma Mia night (though we didn't see much of the film as we were too busy talking!). This weekend I'm going out with my cousins on Friday for a curry, and Saturday I'm out with the lovely Ally Andbag! Next weekend is my friend Jill's birthday so doing something for that, then we're having parents for Sunday lunch for Em's birthday; then it's Em's actual birthday, then 2 rounds of Metallica before we crawl into March (and the red, nope not the red, they'll need to invent a new colour looking at my overdraft!)!

So, quick update there, I will try and be a much better blogger in the future!

Only 7 Years Later!

I've decided to get on with Emily's baby scrapbook. In my defense I wasn't a scrapbooker when she was a baby, but 7 years down the line I was feeling a tad guilty for not having teeny tiny Emily scrapped much!

So, I had a bit of a crop with Lauren last week and I chose this layout that she showed me months ago which I loved! So simple and yet very cute!

Meet The Family!

So, the snow's continued all day. It got to about 4pm and I'd run out of excuses not to let the kids loose in the white stuff again; so off we went into the garden for a bit of Frosty building. This time however, we went for a trio of Frostys: so please meet Mummy Frosty, Emily Frosty and Xander Frosty (there would have been a Daddy Frosty but we were too cold and tired so he'll have to build his own!)!!

When I Were A Lass...

How many times have I heard that today? (And mainly out of my mouth!)

It's corny but we did used to get proper snow when I was a child; and we got it regularly every winter. Nowadays it seems they forecast a bit of snow, everyone gets excited, 3 flakes fall and the whole country grinds to a halt. To say snow is a big anti-climax in England these days is an understatement....until now!

Not once but twice now this winter we've had real snow! We had our first snowday back before Christmas, which resulted in the kids very first snow(wo)man. And would you Adam & Eve it, it's happened again! The forecasters have stuck to their word and it's bucketing it down, and it's only going to get worse! Hurray!! OK, so school's shut and that means I get zero studying done today; and poor old Rob's had to trail into work (with a car full of tea and blankets!) as he's on a contract and gets paid by the hour; and the kids are insisting on watching Christmas films as it's snowing. But, I get the feeling it'll be a long time until we see 'proper' snow again so we're relishing in it.

Emily insisted we all go out in it this morning; so me, her and Xander got wrapped up and went for a walk down the road. At first, we were a bit worried Xander would disappear in the snow...

We live opposite a wood and it looks fantastic in snow, so I took the camera along with us.

We had lots of fun, but soon toes, fingers and noses were frozen so we headed back.And just in time: when we reached the botttom of our street it started bucketing it down again:Which of course meant a quick game of 'catch the snowflake with your tongue':So, we're now all toasty and warm back at home again; though I still can't feel a couple of toes yet! And this afternoon, there's a promise of Frosty mark 2; I'm just hoping Rob makes it back through the blizzard so he can go and help out!