4got to say

noah is doing much better! ate 2 meals yesterday, had breakfast and lunch today. no throwing up and hardly any diarhea. after his nap this afternoon he had a *normal* dirty nappy! was nice to see =)

good bye for 2 weeks =)

so...clothes are almost all packed. dishes are almost all washed up. so i just need to finish the kitchen and get non-clothes items packed and all together. we went into town this morning to pick up and return some stuff. left the house at 9:15, a record for us! and got home at half 12. which was a lot longer that i had planned, but have no idea why it took that much time! oh well.

andy has had an easy week this week. well fairly easy anyway! tuesday they spent most the day in stratford-upon-avon.
and thursday the *whole* school went to the cinema to see, *meet the robinsons* must be nice eh? so i am hoping that he comes home right after school today so that we can get this ball rolling!

i thought i'd leave you all with a few photos since there probably won't be much in the next 2 weeks!!!

need to pack, need to pack, need to clean...

ack! why is there always so much to do before leaving for holiday?! oh my goodness! am trying to finish up the laundry. with no dryer it is going painstakingly slow. but got a lot done yesterday as it was warm and sunny. today? cold and spitting with rain now and then!

took noah to the doctors, she said there is a lot of this going around and just to keep up with what we are doing. if he gets a bit worse, take away dairy products and go back after the weekend. but so far today, he's had a bit of the Dword that i can't spell, but (don't read if you are squirmish) its getting a bit thicker *though it looks like mustard with the seeds in it!*

he also ate his whole lunch of mashed potatoe with cheese and baked beans! so hooray for that =) he hasn't thrown up since lunch yesterday and has been still sleeping well =)

as for my shop *located over there on the left* someone (probably my mom) has made the first purchase!! so i am officially in business =) i made a private shop as well for my mom with photos of the boys just for her enjoyment!

well, we are off tomorrow to preston for a wedding saturday. sunday travelling up to dumfries in scotland to spend the night before catching the ferry over to larne then drive down to belfast! yippee


these photos are from a walk we took after dinner on monday night! it was such a nice week (up until today!)

well..

thought we were going to have a good day, as the first diaper from noah was only wet! no diarhea! but lo and behold, i heard the noise! so i changed his diaper, again. then a little while later, another, bigger noise sounded from that general direction!! so i changed his nappy *AGAIN*

then, i went out back to hang up the laundry and had closed the door so no boys could come out. well noah crawled up to the door and playing with the lock. there are 2 knobs, above and below the actual key lock and he can reach the bottom knob and ofcourse, twisted it... which means, *he locked me out*!!! i didn't know what to do! so i knocked and knocked and knocked until about 10 minutes later, micah finally came into the room and i was able to get him to untwist the knob and let me in. phsew =) i wasn't getting worried as i knew he'd be able to do it, but noah was getting upset!

then i went upstairs to get more laundry to wash and noah started crying. when i came back downstairs, he had thrown up all over himself and the floor! poor noah! he had found a piece of celery that he had been chewing on yesterday and tried to eat that. that's what brought on the vomit...so while its still yuck, i am hoping that its not this virus or whatever and just yucky food =)

*i added some more merchandise to the shop!*

just playing

i feel good! i had my legs waxed tonight *finally* and i am sitting here in a silent house, all boys *big and small* are sleeping, i am drinking a double chocolate mocha, watching *hitch* and working on my photos for my shop!!! please if you have a look at it (its on the left there *cafe press*) let me know what you think or what i can add, photo wise. ones that you remember or just a different way to present them?

just doing some more playing around! i downloaded some actions that frame your photos ready for the web....saves some time that's for sure =)

noah

these are from a week or 2 ago that are just so cute! this was just after his bedtime bath and before his bottle, hence the wet hair and bib over his jammies!! but i just love his curls and big round face!! he reminds me so much of pictures of my brother as a baby!!

almost ok

noah is a bit better. thanks for everyones concerns/comments. still not 100% though. as of right now, he does not want to be left to sleep on his own... he has been awake for the most part since 4:30 and it is now 11:15! *HELP*

we had a good day today though, went to the shops around 11, after stopping in the park to play. micah walked most of the time but would ride on the buggy board when i asked him to. (*by the way, i bought a buggy board last week! he he..i forgot to mention that!) if you don't know what the buggy board is, it is a place for micah to stand inbetween me and the stroller. so he can rest a bit if he is getting too tired or for mysake so i can go a bit faster!

now for the fun part! on the left is a link to an online shop where you can buy cards, postcards, calendars and prints and a hundred other things. well, that link will go directly to *my* own page with *my* photography on it!! i thought i would give it a go and see what happens.. i.e. if anyone buys anything and i make any money from it! it only has a few photos on it so far, so i'll be updating as i go. its only for US customers thus far, not my choice...sorry! but its under the name, *charis photography* which is what our photography business will be called, when it is up and running!!!

i have a wedding on saturday for my friends keith and adele up in preston in lancashire! am very excited/nervous as usual but looking forward to it all =) will have andy, micah and noah in tow, so it will be interesting if anything!!!

then we are away to belfast for almost 2 weeks, so don't expect much on here as i have said before, my in-laws computer is super duper slow! =)

***edited to say that cafe press does ship internationally!! so my friend say who also has a shop for toddler/baby items: baby stuff that speaks for itself*****

sickness

my poor wee noah is sick! yesterday evening, after not eating hardly anything at dinner, threw up his milk (yes, all over me and him and the floor)... then threw up around 3 and had diareha (ha ha, have no clue at the moment as to how to spell it *it is after midnight*). then was up at 6ish and a wee bit dirty too. so we went through 3 pairs of jammies and 3 changes of sheets! yuck =(

today he's eaten some cheerio's, biscuits, weetabix with yohurt, a little bit of milk in late morning and early evening. some fruit and some yogurt. and a cracker or 2. BUT lots of water! he's slept loads 3-4 naps today but thankfully, no more yucky poo or vomit! he's bee a wee bit feverish, so has had some calpol....and is now sleeping, and hopefully back to going through the night!

a cool new action =)

micah in tennessee =)

these are some *actions* that i found for photoshop. i looked up *free photoshop actions* and found quite a few pages for it. these 2 were the more *fun* actions =)
andy, micah and i at the baltimore harbor

melissa, kelly, sara and i at milligan, tennessee

stratford

so jonny, the boys and i braved stratford yesterday! we had a few 5 minute blizzards sunday and then 2 light snow flurries on monday! there was a wee bit of snow left on the ground from sunday, but it was so sunny yesterday morning that it was all melting away!

but it was a beautiful day so we thought why not!! so we had a great time, an uneventful journey and still beautiful weather! one of the first stops was near shakespeare's birthplace, i pulled out my camera to take a photo and nothing happened! my battery was dead!! i couldn't believe it..but then i could as we have had it for a week and hadn't charged the battery once since we got it!

oh well... i'll leave you with a photo taken from last summer =)

happy mother's day

ok, so its only mother's day here in the UK, maybe elsewhere, but i know its not in the states! but that's ok! it's ok to have 2 mother's days isn't it??? we do deserve it you know =)

here are some photos from yesterday, so happy st patrick's day as well!

we went out to lunch yesterday with our friend jonny who is over from belfast for a few days! we love our visits from jonny! jonny was andy's groomsmen at our wedding =)

this restaurant had a great childrens play area, though it was in its own room, and children had to be supervised. so you have to i guess split your time between the play area and the dinner area!

but as you can see it was a blast! micah loved it =)

boys will be boys...

i just got these photos back. they are from our film camera taken over the last 2 months i think.
are they precious?! and do you see those eyes?? are they not gorgeous?


here they are playing around with the duster! they were just chuckling away!

here is our snow photos! we really had some snow =) and i am so happy that we actually captured the snow falling! I WANT SOME MORE!

the ides of march

so today's been a great day! we went to solihull with sheila =) i like solihull! and though i didn't get to go to as many places as i would have liked, it was fun and the boys were very well behaved! we went to a park afterwards for lunch and micah enjoyed feeding the duck, geese and swans at the pond!
this photo is from just before dinner...they were having a ball, doing...whatever! don't know 'what' they were doing exactly, but they were sure laughing away!! so cute!

p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA! i miss you and hope that all is well for you there in thailand =)

p.p.s. noah has ALL 4 top teeth coming in! all at once and with no complaints =) just a bit of chewing action going on!

an interesting day...

so i went to bed last night at 10 something...much earlier than normal! plus i fell asleep while putting micah to bed!
this morning we had a funeral to go to. i thought i should go and i would just have to see what happened with the boys. so since it was at 11, i thought i'd be able to get home by 1 as i wasn't going to the burial. i took the single stroller as i knew that noah would sleep on the way and hopefully through part of the service... we took the 18 bus which is generally not stroller friendly, so when it came i had to fold down the stroller and carry noah. not too much problems, got to sainsbury's and walked down to the hall. micah did very well, though he lags behind and it takes ages, it was all good.
micah sat nicely for the 15 minutes before it started and then the first 15 minutes or so that was the singing and the prayer, then noah woke up so we went and sat in the side hall and micah and noah just played about. so they were good and it was stress free. i stayed back to change noah and have a cup of tea with hannah and baby samuel and we finally left at half 12 maybe? i didn't look at the time.
i decided to take the train (for micah's sake) to the next stop and get the bus home from there. no problems again, until the bus came! micah DID NOT want to get on that bus! he wanted to keep walking and i had to literally drag him onto the bus, while holding noah and the stroller! not fun! he cried and cried and cried! he wouldn't sit with me and cried in the corner on the FLOOR, and believe it or not, cried himself to SLEEP!! great! thanks for the peace and quiet, but what was i going to do when it was time to get off?? i had this vision of me getting off with noah and the stroller and the bus driver carrying on with micah asleep still on the floor!!!!
THANKFULLY, that didn't happen and another lady picked micah up off the floor and brought put him into the stroller for me! jeez, that was interesting!

birthday over!

yesterday was andy's birthday! we had a good start to the day with a cooked breakfast. i had offered to bake something for andy to take into school, which is the norm here. on your birthday you bring in something for everyone else!! but he was set on making a fruit salad to take it! so we cut up some bananas, apples, oranges, grapes and strawberries and had a huge fruit salad! well it was a hit as he brought home an almost empty container....i think the day before was someone elses birthday and today is another, so he was thinking something healthy to compensate for the dounuts and cakes being brought in!

micah, noah and i went for a walk late morning to the park. micah had a nice time playing on everything he could! we even tried some new stuff, that he is really to small for, but with just a teeny bit of help, he managed! i took loads of photos as it was a gorgeous day! after lunch was naptime and i managed to get dinner made. then when micah woke up we made and baked the cake! it was fun and micah was a big help =)

then before dinner micah and noah were playing out back when daddy came home! they love it when he gets home and usually he just gets bombarded by them! so they played for a little bit then came in for dinner. so we sat down to beef topped manicotti and a loaf of tear away garlic bread. it was really good!

the cake was just a plain cake with jam inbetween the 2 layers then a coconut buttercream icing. i think it had a bit too much coconut, but it was nice. i'm so terrible at making cakes though! they always look terrible but taste great!!!

we did it!

yes!! i bought us a canon eos 400D!!! hip hip hurray!! i am way way way excited!!! so i have 3 weeks to learn the ins and outs, atleast the most important ones and then we're off to shoot a wedding!! i can't wait!

now all we need is a laptop and hopefully the newest photoshop CS3 (creative suite). and then maybe an A3 printer =) all in good time eh?

here are 4 photos, non-edited!! can't wait to play some more =)

found this

found this photo in one of the numerous folders of photos that we have on our computer...



and i made it into this



and am totally in love with it!

pencil lines

here is the latest sketch from pencil lines. this is a great site....when you are feeling uncreative in your scrapbooking, they have a new sketch every sunday. from different scrapbookers/artists out there and it is so refreshing! i have only done 2 actually, but i am going to be going backwards from #22 this one, and do others that i like!!



credits go to thao cosgroves friendship collection@ scrapgirls and designer digitals for the quote

what a beautiful day!

today has been the most gorgeous day of the year so far! it was sunny all day, not even a spot of rain! lovely white fluffy clouds and the sun was even warm. so in the afternoon, the boys and i took the bus first to the grocery store to buy a few things, then we walked to the park. it is a park that brings back lots of memories! it is just across the street from where andy lived while at uni. and just a few minutes walk from the house where i lived when i was a student here in birmingham.

i remember going there with calem on valentine's day ('99) and swinging away, talking what we wanted to do in life, relationships, reminiscing and everything else!

i remember going with andy and jonny late one night as i forgot my keys to get into springdale (the house i lived in, which was also the college) and andy and jonny had walked me home that night. so we sat on a bench and talked, well i asked questions about there meeting (ie. there place of worship).

as you walk down the street (gibbins rd), along the sidewalk are crocuses...beautiful, gorgeous flowers of purple, yellow and white. i so vividly remember seeing them for the first time, walking to sainsbury's with my new roommate triin and gill, who was the secretary at springdale. we were going to have lunch at the cafe in sainsbury's.....

waving

noah started waving today! it was cute! i was chatting with my mom over yahoo messenger with our webcams on (but not talking just watching) and noah was kinda waving to her! he gets his hand up in the air and he watches his hand and almost waves at himself as his palm is facing his face! lol =) i'll have to try and get a photo...maybe with the webcam! haven't figured out how to do that yet!

the boys are both fine, runny noses, especially micah, but good none-the-less! we were about to go on a walk around 2, but micah fell asleep! then i put noah down and now, they are still sleeping! and its quarter to 4! yikes =)

so really i need to go and make dinner. am making chicken fingers for micah and noah. well, it was going to be just for noah, but it sounds good enough for micah too! you dip them in the crunched up cornflakes for the coating and drizzle butter over them before baking!

in other news, its my sister-in-laws birthday today! so happy birthday esther!

the weekend

we had a nice weekend with andy's sister joanne! we love when she comes to visit us =) doesn't noah look like a little boy now and not our little baby?? he's 9 months today!! WOW!