Happy New Year

I hope yours goes really well and you have a good time spending it however you want to with the people you want to x

Rain, rain and more rain!

It's getting a bit boring now isn't it?
Today has seen me get soaked twice, we waited for it to ease this morning and took out five of the dogs to a local park. Eden stayed at home to get some revision done as she's got her mocks in February and she's already starting to panic about them.
As it happened that was really handy as we were waiting for a parcel to be picked up and all the boys decided they wanted to come!
Two of our dogs are a bit unpredictable around other dogs so we left them at home with Eden to be lead walked later. We do take them altogether most of the time And keep those two on leads unless we're in the middle of the forest and we've got a good view of what's ahead. Luckily all the dogs have a good recall so most of the time there are no problems but I just felt like a stress free walk this morning!  The park was empty which was great, the younger boys splashed in the mud and puddles because after all that's what wellies are for aren't they?
We then dropped Clark off at Grandmas as he was taking down her Christmas cards and some of her decorations, she's got fed up of them!!
 Malc and I then took the two other dogs for a walk. We live very close to a holiday park so we walked up to it and strolled round looking at all the fabulous huge mobile homes discussing which one we're going to live in when Malc retires! Seeing as Malc is fifty-seven now and out youngest is only seven I really can't see that happening! Goodness only knows how old we'll be by the time they all leave home! But it was absolutely lovely to go out by ourselves and talk about dreams and the future instead of our usual conversations about money, kids and the more mundane things in life. We had to take shelter by a mobile home as there was a really heavy shower which was quite romantic! So you can see if that counts as romance just how mundane our life really is!
Off to make tea and hopefully pick up my knitting needles and have a snuggly night in front of the TV. Well I think I've earnt it!!

New Years Resolutions.

One of my friends put something on Facebook this morning about people posting the usual thing about losing weight and getting fitter in the New Year. She suggested making a New Years Resolution that could benefit somebody else. It shouldn't  be charity work or sending money to an organisation but something personal, something that requires a bit of effort, something with meaning. Maybe walking an elderly neighbours dog, making a cake for somebody every now and then. Mowing their garden, writing a letter to a friend and maintaining that contact. What do you think you could do?

This is my Mum and Step dad on Christmas Day, I think my Mum was taken by surprise by the look on her face! One of the things that happened in the last few months was that my Step dad had a stroke. He has made a marvelous recovery, he went into hospital totally paralyzed down one side and not being able to speak and as he had got into hospital so quickly they were able to administer a wonder drug which reverses the effects of the sthee within hours. He was back out within a couple of days and to look at him you just wouldn't know that he'd had a stroke at all.
One of the things this made us think about was that they lived a bit far away, only about 10 miles but with the unreliability of our minibus and my Mums disabilities it would be too far to walk or cycle, it would be a couple of buses each way so they decided to move closer to us which they did a couple of months ago. This has been brilliant because the boys have been able to walk down to them and help do things that they find hard to do which in turn means that some pressure has been taken off me because I know the boys can take some of the jobs off my hands.
For example yesterday my Mum came down with my cold ( I do like to share!) So today I took them up a roast dinner that I cooked yesterday and a trifle that I'd made so that Ed could spend time looking after Mum and himself as one of the after effects of the stroke is that he gets tired very quickly.
After we'd visited them I went to visit my friend who had baby number 11 on Christmas Day, today was also baby number 10's first birthday, so I got to hold a little newborn which is always a pleasure. It always leaves me feeling really broody though!
When we got home the boys took the dogs out and I did a mountain of ironing despite my dropping the heaviest of hints over the past couple of days that I should be in bed being pampered! We are bracing ourselves for another storm with heavy rain and strong winds tonight, so the rabbits have been covered and secured. We will all snuggle down and be grateful that we can stay indoors and don't have to go out anywhere.
Now I'm off to drink my lemsip! Sniff, sniff !!

Where have I been?

Well, the main computer broke then Clark's tablet broke, so I've had to wait until Christmas to keep my fingers crossed that Santa would bring me a tablet all for myself! Luckily he did!
So much has happened since my last post.
We have two new puppies, Tyxall and Chumleigh. They are brother and sister. This photo is of them at 7 weeks old, they are now 17 weeks old. They are Staffordshire Bull Terriers. My friends dog had 11 of them and she very kindly gave us two of them!

More pictures

This is how we had to carry them around for the first few weeks until they'd had both their jabs.

I will post some pictures of how big they are now over the next few days. 

We also have another teenager in the house, Callum has turned 13 at the end of September.

We also had Rememberence Parade where I was a very proud Mum with the youngest three boys taking part in their Beavers/Cubs uniform

Eden had her Youth Club Christmas Ball which gave her a chance to dress up!

Cody had his 7th birthday, we went to a place I think I've mentioned before where two children eat free with every paying adult so it works out really cheap for us, not even £3 each! For a few Sundays in December Father Christmas was there too, luckily Cody's birthday fell on one of those Sundays.

We've made things for Christmas

Well that sort of brings you up to date !

I'm sure with future posts I'll be talking about past happenings.

So pop back when you have time. More to follow!