The normal winter thing!

We have been really ill for the last week. Michael was in bed for nearly a week, followed by exams the next week - he feels like he did okay despite only being well and alert from the Sunday, so not much revision happened there. As well as he could expect to anyway! Then Peter got a cough, which is about when Mum and Dad paid us a little visit. We met at the temple in the pouring rain - Michael and I really couldn't have gone to the temple without Peter without absolutely major disappointment on his part though! We enjoyed the visitor's centre for a little while, and then had lunch in a little out of the way room, and then Mum and Dad took the children to their Primary party while Michael and I spent some time TOGETHER in the temple for the first time in a very, very long time. Mum and Dad were there for the children's sacrament primary presentation the following day too. Rebekah gave the first talk with a little help from Mummy and seemed to totally enjoy it, and even totally enjoy being up there the whole time. No shyness at all! They all gave a talk and joined in with the singing and seemed to really enjoy themselves. :o) The children hot to see quite a bit of Mum and Dad, although Michael and I quite a bit less. It was nice to have the visit though - thank you! Thanks for bringing the maternity clothes with you too!!






Well just after that Rebekah became very poorly with flu. We've all had a share of it now - some worse than others. You can't not share things in families can you, or at least you don't seem to get much of a choice with the nasty things like that! After being in bed for three days, and not even seeing downstairs for more than two of those, I was well enough to get up this morning and take Rachel, Hannah and Sarah to church. They all really wanted to go, and Rachel and Hannah were keen to sing the song on their own in sacrament meeting that we were supposed to be singing as a family. They did a verse of another one on their own too and sang with the choir for the rest of it. They seemed to enjoy it. The quartet I should have sung in sounded great as a trio luckily! I had so been looking forward to this Sunday, and especially all of the singing we would be involved in. Talking has been more than enough until today though. I stuck around during sacrament meeting in the relief society room which is right at the back of our chapel (so I wouldn't be near anyone), but it exhausted me so much that I needed to go back to bed to rest a while before going back to pick the girls up at the end of church.

Peter, Michael and Rebekah watched church videos for most of the day, with Michael and Rebekah falling asleep in turn (Peter and Rebekah had seemed to get a bit better later i the week but then came right back down again yesterday). We watched a few videos in the afternoon together, and decided in the end to watch a Christmas Mormon tabernacle choir show for our family home evening, so everyone could join in. A bit too much video watching for one day! (Peter fell asleep during that in the end though. He hadn't fallen asleep until midnight the night before after crying for hours that his ear was hurting, but not letting us give him any medicine. When we finally got some into him, he was straight asleep and slept straight through.) We finished off by watching a video on You Tube of the angel Moroni being put on the London temple during the last week. We're hoping the scaffolding will be off so that we can see it properly when we are finally well enough to go back there and see the Christmas lights, etc. This week, or next week I suppose it might be now. Then we sang a carol by the light of the Christmas tree and the candles I had finally restocked from last year, and listened to a lovely christmas story from the Friend magazine the year Michael was baptised. Hopefully everyone will be asleep soon (illnesses depending)! That finish to the day should have been happening for a while now, but illnesses have somewhat got in the way of everything. It's nice to have started it though. It'll feel a bit Christmassy from now on hopefully.

Michael, Rebekah and Peter stayed in their pyjamas and rested all day today. Actually Peter has been in his since Friday night - all weekend. :o) Rachel looked at Michael this afternoon and laughed though because she said he looked like a fisherman! I could totally see it when I looked at him. As well as the pyjamas he has been wearing his winter hat and a scarf round his neck for most of the last two days. I'm sure the stubble helped a bit too though. :o)




So anyway, while the camera was out, I had to take a few other pictures too. I had been putting a few more decorations up in the living room (something that has happened in tiny bursts in between feeling really ill!) while the children watched a video this afternoon and Michael slept - he said he was fine not going to bed, so ended up looking very strange lying on a settee instead. I think it was to block off all sound and light!



I couldn't work out where to put the last bit of tinsel I had in my hand, so ended it up with it tied in a bow on me. I do look rather silly, but Sarah did want to take a photo and I've let Michael look silly on here so...




Then here's bump at 18 weeks (pictorially is probably the best way to show bump we figured, and we've never taken many pictures of me pregnant before, or of me at all really, so I get to be in the family a bit more for a while too!) ...



As for bump, I have been so grateful during the last week for muesli! Finding something that I can eat again the morning other than fruit has been fantastic, having gone off everything I had previously had for breakfast. Now I'm getting a little sick of it though, as I have been going totally off what I had been having to eat during the rest of the day, and sometimes it is the only thing to resort to. Hopefully I'll think of something else before Christmas that I can stomach! Barley Cup has been bliss this last week as well. It helped me feel so much better while I have been ill and with a bit of power milk added (added protein) it gives me a little something when I'm desperate! Michael felt the baby for the first time this week, which was nice for him, although he was too ill at the time to be overly excited. :o)

... and the children in their Christmas clothes, and of course the obligatory pyjamas. :o)







Maybe some of the things we had planned for Christmas will still happen. I hope so, but if not I'm sure we'll enjoy whatever we are able to do. We are sorry to hear that you have been ill with a cough Mum and Dad - from being with Peter I suppose! I do hope it hasn't / doesn't turn into more than that. Keep warm and snug and as well rested as much as you can won't you? We're pretty sure what Rebekah and the rest of us got was from the Primary President (who said she had flu on Sunday) rather than Peter, although we ended up with his cough as well. So I hope yours is at least just the cough! Of course you were around the Primary President too - whoops - sorry! We hope that David and family are well this winter, and that we all are by Christmas! In case you don't look at this again before then, or I don't put anything else on here before then, we hope everyone has a really especially celebratory wonderfully HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!

My Bag

I decided to make a bag for one of my friends and I only just finished it in time for Christmas. I liked making it it was fun. It's also for one of my Faith in God goals and it says that I have to display it so I am putting it on the blog.

Balloon Modelling

Here are a giraffe, a humming bird and a dog that I made. I like making them a lot.
it is fun to make them.

Things to be thankful for

Okay this has been some time in waiting to be posted. The videos just wouldn't work, and wouldn't work, and wouldn't work, but success tonight! I'm not including them in here in case it all goes to pot again - they follow afterwards - but I'm not going to bother changing this either, so you can just imagine them slotted in if you want to! Love to everyone!


We made a Be Grateful beehive in our Family Home Evening this week because of it being Thanksgiving and have filled it with things we are collectively thankful for as well as our own little ones for our own personal thoughts. It's nice to stop and think about those things sometimes - most of us probably don't often enough. It was lovely some of the things our children said they were grateful for. Peter is grateful for Joey bear, of course.

As you now know, one thing that we have all felt very excited about for a while now is that we are expecting another baby next May. He or she is due the end of May, so may actually end up being the beginning of June. So far Rebekah has been the latest past the due date - 14 days over - but they all have been, so you never know when. Peter also understood when we told the children about a month ago, and started telling me that he had a baby (his toy one) and Mummy has a baby in her tummy. He gives my tummy cuddles sometimes, and of course fairly regularly wants to see the baby. I think he'll be amazed when he sees or feels the baby kicking. Sarah couldn't stop laughing and jumping up and down! Rachel now calls the baby Samuel, as most of us feel like it is probably a boy, but Sarah really wants a girl - she and Rebekah would rather we didn't find out though. At the moment Samuel David is pretty much set if little dot does turn out to be a boy (we only chose that name before Rachel was born!) We'll have to see otherwise.

You can see in the video clips here Rachel and Hannah's amazement at finding out - they'd never guessed a thing, but Rachel had been getting a bit annoyed at my eating strange things! They all got extremely manic, and have each got more excited as time goes on. That might be partly because of how Michael ended up telling them I suppose, but not necessarily. They thought around all of the details almost straight away. :o)

We were having our morning devotional at the time and departed from the normal place we'd been reading to read a few verses relevant to babies being known before they were born, etc. Hannah was annoyed because she likes where we were reading in the Book of Mormon, and they all thought it was because of their cousin Alison being born (it was the day before she was due I think). So that's really why it wasn't as calm as it could have been - Hannah already knew Alison was going to be born so why did we need to read scriptures about it?! It sorted of changed the tone of the discussion! Anyway, here you go ...



Our thanksgiving meal was nice (no we're not American, but we decided a few years ago we wanted to share in that tradition and so we do!) None of us had had the best of days, but it was lovely to sit down together in the evening by candle light to a yummy roast dinner. I was especially grateful to be able to eat it! My food options are extremely restricted at the moment, apart from when it comes to fruit (which is very good at raising my blood sugar fast enough when needed to help the sick feelings on their way. I have recently been wanting roast parsnips though, potatoes have been good throughout, just like with my pregnancy with Peter, and certain other foods I could cope with. I did manage to get some chicken down too for a bit of protein - hidden by a load of gravy. The idea of meat is not funny, but I have to get the protein from somewhere and when I do get enough regularly I'm not ill. I'm so glad I know how that all works now - I've never before known how to eat to not be ill during a pregnancy, and although I feel ill a lot because I'm not eating quite enough, and have been sick a few times, I can normally stop it in it's tracks! Anyway, I know the ideal and can at least head towards it, and the days when I get the closest to eating what my body needs the better I feel. Knowledge is power! It's also one of the things I am very thankful for.





Well enough of that. I had to rush off to a Young Women activity before we'd all quite finished eating (they're on Thursdays here), but we enjoyed the time anyway. My calling in Young Womens is good. The young women are lovely, and it's nice getting the programme going a bit more with them than has been possible for a little while. It's fun.

Thanks Mum for your cheery e-mail. It was a joy to read and I've read it several times. :o) We hope everyone is having a lovely time doing whatever you're up to. Take care. xxx

The first video

I have only been trying to upload these two videos for more than a week and every time, no matter what I did, it failed. I thought I'd just try it again tonight, and it's deciding to work - one per post, but it works. Yippee!

This was Michael telling the children about the baby. It had been a calm(ish) devotional until just before this. Hannah was certain the reason we read the scriptures we did that morning was because of her cousin who would be born the following day. So in response it got a little more playful and manic. :o) You can't miss Sarah's response, and the others showed theirs gradually, but all very excited after a few minutes had gone by and the news had sunk in!

The second video

My little bit of time with Peter afterwards. He showed that he clearly understood!