See they do wear dresses

Ciara pretty in pink

Enya pretty in green

My family all think that C and E never wear dresses, I would just like to prove that occasionally (okay, very occasionally) they do get all dolled up. Thanks mom for the gorgeous dresses!

During our fantastic summer weather we've also been playing with water, C and E love to play in buckets of water, we just have to strip them after as they are absolutely soaked by the end of the fun. Our turkish holiday starts in less than 2 weeks, I'm very excited to see how they react to the sea!

Ciara in her sun hat

4th post for today

Don't forget to look down and see/read the rest ;0)


I love these next two portaits
Enya

Ciara

In the rocker

Confetti queen- paper is for making confetti out of.....

....and quilts are for pulling behind you

Pictures continued..

Summer, although Enya doesn't look to pleased about it. This is her face she pulls everytime she doesn't get her own way (usually when I refuse to pick her up)


The face I much prefer with a smile on


Jam faces



It was so warm we stripped them down to their nappies, I love summer!!

My 2 week break in pictures

Our kitchen wall being ripped down as a result of the leak from hell

The girla are playing together more and more, here playing "duz" where they bump heads together, don't ask me ask my husband he started this one!

Ciara has learnt to take off her PJ's

Enya has a new friend, her duck. She loves running with the duck literally flying behind her. Unfortunately he is already looking very battered as he gets dragged along outside and rarely with his wheels on the ground. For the first few days we had him he also didn't keep his head on much of the time, thankfully my father fixed him up so the head now at least stays on even if he does have torticullis!

Playing on mommy's bed (the sofa) They can now both climb on and off the sofa so another safe spot is gone. We used to often leave thing out of reach on the sofa much to our darlings frustration, no more though. They have both tumbled off the sofa at various times but still go absolutely wild throwing themselves around and jumping on the sofa when they are up. Needless to say we are trying to discourage them from playing on the sofa.

To be continued......

Refreshed and renewed

I've had a lovely long break while my folks were here, I feel as if I've had a holiday. My parents kept taking the girls out for walks down to our local bakery or into the forest which gave me all this free time to do a "little" project I've been wanting to get to for ages. Ciara is growing out of her sleeping bags (we have about 8 of them and need them all as the night time deluges continue) so I've been wanting to put some duvets on the girls' beds. Unfortunately all the duvet sets I've found here are either hideous or hideously expensive so instead I made my own.
Work in progress

the finished product

I know it's really bright but so is their room. Two made and two to go! I've even had a friend ask me to make her one for her daughters bed in the same colours!

I'm loving having my folks here!!

They take Ciara and Enya out for walks which the girls love, play with them and feed them. I feel like I'm having a holiday at home with 2 devoted grandparents in the house!

I will post some pictures from this week later ;0)

Pictures again

Not a lot to say as I'm "very busy" getting things ready (read clean and tidy) for my folks arriving tonight, instead some photos from the last few weeks.

Ciara- but I'll let you name this photo
It's a really cute photo but all the titles I came up with sounded inane so please give me a few suggestions

Baby jail


The reason why our chicc.o play table has had the legs taken off it




P.S. No tantrum photos as Ciara hasn't thrown any major tants in the last few days.. who knew that threatening to publish photos on the internet was enough to keep her in line. I will have to remember that for the future.

Only 2 more days

In another 2 days my parents are coming, Yippeee! Z has to go to an exibition in the States (Atlanta this time) and as he refuses to take us with (grossly unfair, we wouldn't take up much room, look I'll even pack for us all), my parents are coming to stay and to give me a hand with the terrible two. I can't wait for them to see how much the girls have grown and developed since their last visit.

You think I'm joking about terrible two.... Ciara has taken to throwing herself on the floor and screaming if she doesn't get her way. On Sunday she even did this in the middle of the pavement and when we left her lying there she carried right on (Germans are really good about sweeping their pavements, so civil minded). The funniest thing is she usually also pushes herself around on her back at home on our tiled floors while yelling, she has wandered in this way from room to room while I've been trying to ignore her. I can't wait for Enya to move into this phase too! I'll have to see if I can't get a shot of Ciara performing today as up to now we've only had one meltdown so we're due at least a couple more.

Improving

To stop this blog turning in to a whinge fest I decided not to post until I had something positive to say, so here it is....... we are expecting.

Now don't get your knickers in a twist, one of our fish is incubating eggs in her mouth. Considering all the problems we've had with toxin levels in our tank we are very surprised by this but hey okay then.

We celebrated Mother's Day by driving up to Dusseldorf to a shop specialising in East African Cichlides. The girls seemed to enjoy looking at all the fish tanks although they also kept wanting to bang on the glass. I had a great time following Ciara around the store, she would walk up to all the customers and stare at them as if they were also part of the display. If they ignored her then she was not shy about grabbing their leg for attention, thank goodness she is so adorable as no one minded but it's still not on. Enya is feeling a bit under the weather (really nasty cough) and only wanted to be carried (I also don't think she has forgiven me yet for leaving her alone yesterday with her dad while I went to a first aid course for children).

As part of my get well program for my back I'm trying to move a bit more, I am combining this with a training program for the girls. I want them to learn to walk holding my hand, usually when we go walking they keep pulling away or sitting down as they want to do their own thing. Our training program consists of walking around the block holding my hand, they have their harnesses on so even if they do pull away they can't escape. I have been amazed how well this is working, they are now waiting and extending their hands if we do lose contact and seem to really enjoy the exercise and fresh air. Ciara has even fetched her harness and brought it to me to put on to show she wants to get out in the fresh air.

Just as well I didn't get my hopes up too high for the week, now I've injured my back. I'm hobbling around and can't even lift the girls into/out of bed. When it rains it pours.

One of those weeks....

.. that really drags on the substance.
That's what we had last week, I'm really hoping this week is the complete opposite, unfortunately I doubt it! Because to name but a few things going on right now...

I'm stuck at home today as I'm waiting for the insurance man to pop around, we've got a slow leak somewhere in the corner of our kitchen ceiling/heating room which we only noticed yesterday. It's obviously been going on a while as we already have mould. It looks like the one side of our kitchen units is going to have to be dismantled as they will have to open the wall up to dry everything out. The last time this happened it took about 3 weeks to dry out and that was with a gas heater blasting on to it, at least this time it is in summer.

The girls are not yet back to normal, we're now dealing with diarrhea. Ciara still has a very poor appetite but at least Enya's has picked up. On the positive side they haven't lost any major weight in the last week ;0).

The aquarium is having problems as well, the nitrites are not being broken down despite a rescue package of bacteria being poured in last Thursday. These are poisonous for the fish in a high enough concentration (which we now have) so now even Z's form of relaxation is turning into a stress for him as he is trying to work out what to do next. The fish that we do have in the tank look like they are also mostly male which is not good as they are very aggressive to another male of the same species (Z bought in both fish types what he thought were 1 male and 3 females and with both types it looks like the ratios are reversed. Unfortunately it is very difficult to catch the fish in our tank due to the number of caves in the rocks)

I know in comparison to some people, our problems are not major but it is all very wearing nonetheless.

Recovery

We landed up making a run to the doc on Thursday after all as Enya threw a high temperature that I couldn't get down under 39 C. In a way it was a waste of time as he didn't give me any new advice but at least he confirmed that I was doing everything right.

Enya is a monster when she is ill(or recovering), she won't drink or eat!! I'm lucky if I got 300ml in total down her yesterday, this evening I gave in and gave her a mostly pure milk bottle otherwise today's total would have been under 100ml. At least she finally ate something this evening. Ciara is still being very picky with what she eats but she is otherwise behaving normally.

I'm really hoping we are all back to normal soon