Seth

It's true that no one rewards a mum with adoration quite like a baby. You make it wonderfully obvious that I am your favourite person in the world and whilst it lasts I will basque in it! I think perhaps I am still Ben's favourite too and perhaps Joseph's, when he's in need, but neither's face light up when I just walk in a room like yours does.
 Seth if there were such things as baby A-levels you would have aced the cute, aced the smiley, aced the cheeky but failed the sleeping through! You are really sociable - someone gives you some attention and you reward with a smile and some of your lovely babble. You have been on the move for months (Oct the 15th was the day you started to walk) and yet still people gawp in awe at how stable you are and remark how you look too small to be walking! Most of the time now you don't walk you almost run!! You can also walk backwards and when there is music to be heard you can bop too! Though you are definitely active, you have a cuddly side too which is lovely.

You just love to be outside, any time the back door is open you take your chance. Of course like your brothers you love small stones and just like them you think they're tasty!? You also like to scare me to death with your love of lego. You have no interest whatsoever in age appropriate toys, far too safe for your attention! You'd rather play with cutlery, the piles of bits that dad sweeps up from the kitchen floor, the fire tools, kitchen sponges and have I mentioned lego?!!

You are going to be a chatterbox. Granne thinks in a year's time you'll be arguing with me the way you're going lol! You say 'Dada' 'Hiya' 'Yeh' and 'Maaaa' you pat your high chair if you want more food. You point your finger at us and wag it with purpose. The other day, Ben was having a tantrum and you went and wagged your finger at him!!! 

Seth you are a joy! As no one adores a mum like her baby no one adores the baby quite like their mum and you'll always be mine.

Glimpses Vol.4

Boxing Day

Lie in. Big boys, little boys and Aunty Alice went for a nerf gun battle at the chapel! Bacon butties. Hair curled by Alice.

Party at Granne and Grandad. Seth adorned the penguin costume again, providing lots of adorable moments for all the Aunts and Grandmas to coo over. I received a note from Grandma Josie requesting a photo of him in it as she had been enchanted by him and his clapping. 

Cousin Oliver was also very cute in his reindeer outfit.

Glimpses Vol.3

Christmas dinner at Grandma & Grandad's. Great dinner. Mammoth present opening session! Marvel superheros giant box from Uncle Tim for the boys including - 'Hulk Smash!' (Ben's name for him!)Aunty Alice played 'Seth-in-a box'  Christmas tartan PJ sleepover with all the family at Uncle Tim's request. Nerf Gun battle in the living room. Downton Abbey Christmas special - no one died this year (bonus)   

Glimpses of Christmas just been vol. 2

The one and only photo of all our mini performers altogether!

Glimpses of Christmas 'just been'

One why I blog moment - Joseph noticed the list of rules hung outside the door to Santa which stated what good children did. He asked me to read them to him. He evaluated that he actually did all of them and that Ben (who was being a little silly due to being very excited at the prospect of meeting Santa) was 'trying' to be good. he took it upon himself to try and help Ben calm down...'Come on Ben, just be good, come and give me a hug, come on... look Mum he's trying!' He then asked me to read the list of things bad children do. He evaluated that he didn't do any of those things until we got to...... wee in the bath. Well his little head dropped like a stone....'ohhhhh I do wee in the bath!'... Nathan and I had to  stifle the giggles. We reassured him that if he tried not to between now and Christmas then that would be good enough. When the elf opened the door to the boys, she asked them; ' Now have you been good?' Joseph answered 'We're trying, we're really trying!' 

From Number 15 to Duck Down

NB - This post was written back in November, just got round to adding the photos into it today :/

It's been a while! We've just been reconnected to the net having moved into our new house! This past month has been hectic but we have been abundantly blessed. As the hymn goes 'count your blessings, name them one by one' I feel it is important to record some of the specific blessings we received this month.

An amazing new home - with all the space we need, in a location we love at a price we could afford, a lovely garden and with bags of character. Seriously I keep looking around, not quite believing that it has happened. A real faith building experience which I will cherish. Last year we couldn't work out how we would be able to move though we felt with the arrival of our third baby we would need to move on to a bigger space. It didn't happen at the time but we felt OK to wait. We couldn't work out where the right  house would be with the space we needed and the right price. We couldn't control when our house would sell and what would be available at the time. It actually felt easy to hand over to Heavenly Father to work out the details and in the time that was right, everything fell into place and His hand is certainly visible in the detail.

 We loved our old house - number 15, The Cottage. 

I will miss the view of the trees from the kitchen window;

the view of the housetops from our bedroom,

  

the fireplace -what a find and I will miss our bedroom, those beams which Nathan sanded for me night after night, amazing!

 I love the imperfection of them and the wooden pegs. Our last night I carved our name and initials into the back of one of them - out of sight but I wanted to leave a 'we lived here' mark which I hope will remain for as long as the beams are there. It was a privilege to live there.

We already love this house, Number 68, Duckdown Cottage. The space is fab.I feel more in control as we have places to put things.  I love the dining room, the garden is gorgeous and I can't wait to get the fires going.

So many people helped us to move including our four aptly built missionaries and Martin with a tractor and cherry picker to enable us to remove furniture through the first floor bedroom.

 On Wednesday night 12 brothers from church came to help as well. Carol and Simon were there most of the day to help too and they stayed until very late at night. Mum and Dad had Joseph and Ben for the day. On Thursday, Ann, Nat and Becky came to help me clean and Andrew and Dave came to help with the rest of the move which included ripping up the kitchen floor. How could I forget that little nutmeg lol! Perhaps as it doesn't come under the category of 'blessings!' No, not really a blessing but one of those - we'll laugh about it in years to come!

So, I had a speaking assignment at Saturday evening session of Stake conference. Remarkably I finished it 10 hours..that is 10 hours ahead of time. Anyone who knows me well this was extremely out of character. I even bragged about it on facebook and got messages of congratulations (including my procrastination partner in crime - Jane!). Literally it was pride before a fall. An hour later as I was surrounded by boxes in the bathroom, Joseph ran upstairs ' Mummy, there's water in the kitchen!' Nathan I sprinted downstairs to find the kitchen floor covered in water - no joke! Ben had left the tap on after getting himself a drink, it must have been running for a while. Towel after towel was rung out, it was then discovered that the dryer was no longer blowing out hot air - minor detail really! It took about an hour to mop up the surface water but unfortunately it had got underneath the boards and a couple of hours later the floorboards tee-peed, lifting off the ground! In the seven years we lived in that house we had never made a claim on our home insurance! A day after exchanging contracts on the sale of said home - it was flooded! You know obviously moving house wasn't stressful enough we just needed something to mix it up a bit!  Monday, I had to ring the insurance, the solicitor and the estate agent to inform them of the issue. Tuesday evening the sellers were coming round at 6:30 to check it out and discuss what they wanted us to do about it. At 6:05, Richard who came to fix the loo posted the keys through the door whilst Nathan and I were at number 68 unloading some more boxes leaving us locked out!!!! I felt like I was in some sort of 'Some mother's do av em!' sketch. The thought is having to show the couple their wrecked floor through the kitchen window whilst balancing on the wobbly brick work of the flowerbed nearly tipped me over the edge!!! Fortunately Nathan and Richard scaled the roof and spiderman style head first Nathan squeezed himself through the 2nd floor velux window. The couple arrived 5 minutes later unbeknowing to the slight chaos which had ensued moments before!

Blue eyed boy numero tres

This boy - our mini bundle of joy!

I am loving watching him explore. He can sniff out mischief from a mile, just like his brothers! Where you would prefer him not to go, he goes! He loves the fireplace, the basket of logs and the coal scuttle. He loves the fireplace in the boy's bedroom with all its muck and he totally would love more than anything to get his hands on  some lego!

  Yesterday I walked into the living room and discovered him half way up the stairs - oh dear. He was so pleased with himself and shrieked with delight when I found him! We have conversations of 'Ooooo'  which then turn into 'ah dah' and then back into 'Ooo' he copies me and I copy him.

 I love watching his bum as he crawls, at times he moves head down obviously to become more streamlined thus increasing speed and the swift way he switches from crawling to sitting. I know in a few weeks time this will be one of those past sights as he will in doubt be walking. He has been free standing for nearly two months and can bend his knees and keep balance.

Boy you are a delight.