Caleb's lesson for Sunday was...

...Mummy will NOT be impressed to wake up and find you smearing poo over yourself and the sofa she is napping on!

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Lots of you probably know the beginning of this, but you may not have see it in it's entirety, which I think is a shame. I was saying to a friend that I intended to type it up and present it all nicely to put up somewhere in the house for those times when I need a bit of perspective, and bless her heart she went and hand-painted it onto canvas for me as a surprise. That really touched me, so I thought I'd just share it.

New Year celebrations etc.

This muddles things up a bit, coz Mark's posted about Valentines day already, but skipping back a bit I ought to mention our weekend (especially for those who wonder why we weren't at church on Sunday- as if anybody noticed!) Our very special friends Dave and Rhiannon, Sam, and the newly-added Oscar came for the weekend so that we could 'do' New Year. We had a lovely time just doing those holiday things that we all missed out on through everybody being ill. By 'those holiday things' I just mean eating and drinking A LOT and sitting around chatting and laughing together. It really felt like a holiday, and despite almost no sleep for anybody due to 2 babies and an excitable toddler, we all had a lovely time. Tiring as it always is when they visit (even without all the bed-hopping for those under 3s, we always stay up stupidly late) it does make me long for those days when they just lived upstairs. I miss them!
Mark scored loads of points with me for generally keeping on top of tidying and meal-preparation while they were here (and letting me lie-in on Sunday), then on Monday he emptied our garage into the car and went to the tip- so with that AND taking me to Ikea yesterday he had one happy Valentine!

St Valentin

We seem to post things on here in fits and starts. Just had a lovely Valentine's Day yesterday, with a 12-days-of-christmas style lead up to it where each morning since the 1st Feb I have found a chocolatey treat hidden somewhere in the house when I got up. Then yesterday was treated to chocolatey soaps & stuff, chocolate-filled crepes and Bucks Fizz for breakfast, a trip to IKEA for a few bits & pieces and then steak and chips for dinner, followed by Charlie & The Chocolate Factory on DVD (see review shortly on The Greatest Trick). An altogether pleasant day, and for some reason the kids behaved beautifully, which just made things even better. Love is a marvellous thing...

My new passion

Having got myself an iPod just before Christmas (to help keep me sane on those long, teenager-infested school trips I keep organising), I tentatively began exploring podcasts in iTunes, and have found the best one ever: Coverville. Host Brian Ibbott plays cover versions of songs, and that's about it, and it's brilliant. He's not the most professional-sounding DJ at first listen, but his style is warm and homely and every now and again his wife pops in to do a quiz with him. And the music he plays you will not hear anywhere else in the world. Check out the Teenage Dirtbag cover in show 177 for a great example of this. There was a Groundhog Day episode a couple of weeks ago which also comes highly recommended, with a brilliant selection of Britney Spears covers (particularly liked the Nickel Creek version of Toxic, a song I always avoided the video for because of the visuals but listening to 3 totally different versions makes you realise what a good song it actually is). I won't give away the gag, just in case anyone wants to listen to it, but try and do so without reading any comments on the website first. Check it out.

Our holiday plans

My French has taken a nose-dive, and we haven't had a holiday for years, so we've been investigating villas in Nice. Found this gorgeous one and have made enquiries for August (sadly of course we HAVE to fit in with school holidays). Hopefully it will be a great time, especially as Nikki & Robin & the kids are planning to be with us! Fantastique!

Things I have intended to blog about

1. Christmas- was a lovely 2 days, followed by a couple of weeks of extreme illness- glad the kids timed it right!

2. I don't recommend that people who need to re-mortgage do it with their existing lender. We have. It was stupidly complicated. Don't go there.

3. I managed to not only not kill an orchid but I got it to re-flower, quite proud of myself actually!
Photographic evidence

4. A surprise jaunt to check out the new Ikea at Milton keynes, I was thrilled to find the right sideboard in stock, unfortunately we underestimated the amount of woodstain we'd need so it's not completed yet. Silver lining: another trip to Ikea in the near future?!

5. Getting the Singin' in the Rain DVD for Christmas (thankyou, thankyou, thankyou Nikki and Robin!) and slowly working my way through the extras on these gloomy winter evenings. Also, discovering that Caleb loves it!

6. Caleb's current tendency to define things as things he 'loves' or 'doesn't love' (Classic example: 'I love dis game....OW! I don't love dis game!)

7. A family trip to see real dinosaur bones, there's not much in the world as exciting as that as far as Caleb is concerned.

8. Caleb's first chocolate fondue- a little messy, LOTS of fun!

9. Elodie becoming more gorgeous by the day, and getting bigger all the time!

My big boy...

...started pre-school this week! He's taking it in his stride, unsurprisingly playing with dinosaurs and singing songs comes quite naturally to him, and when I picked him up from his second afternoon his reply to 'what did you do today?' was a very teenage-sounding 'I don't know' -it starts early doesn't it!
The idea that I might use the time to get to know Elodie isn't going to work as the sessions fall at her naptime, but honestly I'm not complaining if this means I'm going to get some things done around the house- or even if it only means I get to watch Neighbours in peace! I think I'll often end up using it as a bit of breathing space to just stop and do nothing, actually. I'm grateful for the 'time off'- Caleb has a strong personality and the weeks can get pretty exhuasting when it's all-day, everyday. Things in this house have just been a permanant whirlwind these last couple of years, not just because we've become 'a family' but because that's coincided with increased responsibility at work for Mark, and with Church for both of us. I think at least one of us in this house needs a little of their sanity restored, and this might be how we do it- offloading our kids!