My Visit To the Boys

Yesterday was a GREAT day …. I was given birthday presents 3 days early (NOT stash orientated) and a very early Easter Egg which is now sitting taunting me. “Eat Me” it calls but I am trying to resist …. Not sure whether I can ignore the call ‘til Easter !!!!!

The VERY BEST part of yesterday was seeing Ben and Jake, not forgetting DS Steve and Emma. They have grown up so much in the past 2 months, the grandsons that is, not the parents !!! I cannot believe it is so long since I was over. I shall be seeing them again in two weeks though.

If I drove I would be over a lot more as it only takes a max of 45 mins but public transport is a bus and 2 trains and usually takes 2hrs + each way. I also know that too many visits can destroy the routine Emma has carefully devised and routine is the only thing that allows her to cope so well when she is alone with the boys. It seems to work well as they are such happy souls except if they are under the weather. Steve is a great dad and plays a big part in things, especially at night and on his days off. Never thought he had it in him but father hood has been good for him along with the love of a good woman.

Here are a few cute pics... well I think they are but then I'm their Nana.!

SHARING??

I have done a little scrapping this week and a new FH LO is on my ‘Glimpsing the Past’ Blog.These are 2 of the details ..........


The following LO will also go into my FH Album but it is designed to go with the LO, Sisters 3, which I did for the Cyber crop ( see earlier post). It is simple but hopefully captures the feel of the late part of the Art Deco period.

Here we have the oldest sister (MIL) with her stepmother, who was mother to Billie. (the youngest in the earlier LO) ….. hope you followed that!! and enjoy my blog.

Thanks for taking the time to look.

Bubble Fun

Having experimented with paint on a LO previously, shown a few posts ago. I thought I would have another play using bubble wrap. I used two colours and quickly dabbed them them on, using my trusty foam brush, keeping one colour towards the right and the other towards the left but ensuring that they did not go on evenly. I felt like a kid at playschool !!! I then lowered my sheet of Bazzil carefully on to the bubble wrap and pressed down evenly. I then peeled it off and left it to dry .... ensuring that none of the cats could curl up on it and leave their hair as added texture. The result .... my own original patterned card stock and this is how I used it ... hope you like it.

I've been doing some scrapping ... at last

Managed to get some inspiration over the past few days so did some scrapping and then realized that I had not up loaded a layout of the twins I did some time ago, for their DUE DATE so here it is.


I am getting into stitching using Bazzil In-stitch and I find it fun.

I love watching the tide coming in and out on the beach at nearby Leven so this DL says it all to me. It may not be the most picturesque part of the beach but it gives great texture to the photos.


I also love playing with the 12x optical zoom on the camera and birds always catch my eye. Hope you like what I have done.

The poem I used brings back memories of my husband reciting this and many others to the children, from a nonsense book he had. The problem they had was that it was humerous the first and second and possibly the third and fourth time when they were very young but not the tenth or even twentieth as they grew up but Dads will be Dads !!!!

Yeah ....... WE HAVE SNOW

Woke up this morning and there it was…… snow everywhere.
My wish had come true at last, there were a couple of centimetres lying on the ground and the snow clouds were still shedding their load on Fife and in particular, MY GARDEN.

I was so excited that I nearly went out in my slippers and nighty but the icy blast that met my knees as I opened the back door quickly brought me to my senses.
“Get dressed, have a coffee and then get the camera” I told myself.

Before I could get my trainers on my daughter and her friend were out building a Snowman. May I point out that my daughter is no 10 year old … infact she is 30++ and her friend is 25+.!!!!!.The work of art became a busty Snow lady as it evolved…its nice to be different and make the neighbours smile....... I told myself.

Sadly most of the snow has gone now although it did reach at least 8 cm in depth but the snow lady remains to remind us of the fun morning we had. I wonder if she will be there in the morning, or will there just be a pile of embellishments!

MY EXPERIMENT
I tried an experiment on my newest layout. I was inspired by the techniques used in the Cybercrop class by Ifa and although I did not take part on the day, I wanted to have a go at watercolours and do my own thing.
I would like to point out that I cannot draw or paint but I felt like trying to construct a layout with almost nothing for a picture taken in 1944, when there would have been a ‘make do and mend’ attitude due to rationing in the war.
I used 1 sheet of Bazzil card stock and one sheet of watercolour paper, which I found amongst my hoards of bits and pieces, a Zig pen for all the free hand drawing and Marvy la Plume pens (bought years ago and used a few times for stamping) now used for their other use, making watercolour washes.
This is my first attempt and I shall try it again, making improvements with each LO I do but it was great fun and a very cheap original way to scrap.
Maybe this is one of the answers to combat the Credit Crunch and still continue to scrap Paint in all its forms seams to be a great answer. Applying paint to bubble wrap gives a great background effect when pressed onto plain card. Lets not forget that all those stamps we have fallen in love with over the years can be used to create wonderful original patterned cardstock and the watermark effect is stunning too.

This really is worth a try

Bye for now

Thanks for reading this. Angie xx

Snow … what snow?

While most of the United Kingdom became covered in snow there remained one small corner that was missed, the corner I live in. Well I suppose if I am honest not completely missed but no more fell than the dredging of icing sugar one would sieve over a sponge. I watched the news and heard about how many centimetres had fallen in the North of Scotland and in The Borders and everywhere in-between. It was even falling thickly on London and surrounding areas, which is where I moved from in the hope of seeing some snow during the winter months. A friend informed me that Fife never gets snow especially near the coast but I knew she was mistaken as we had had some the first winter we were up here so I still lived in hope..
Then on Saturday morning, when large flakes appeared and fell thickly from the heavens I let myself get excited and rushed to find the camera but by the time I had it in my hands the snow had stopped and within, what seemed a very few moments there was no evidence that it had ever been there. I was left wondering whether my longing for a few inches of snow to fall and remain for a few hours had caused me to hallucinate. Alas there were to be no snow pictures yet again this year.

Putting all thoughts of snow out of my mind I turned it to scrapping.This of course has been UKS Cyber Crop weekend and I have dipped my toe into the pool of classes and challenges … in fact I did one class and two challenges but have printed off some of the classes to experiment with later. I find it hard to get inspiration to command so three over the weekend was all I could manage. The result of my labours you can see below

This is the mother of my late husbands cousin, who lives in America and I made contact with last year These are my late husbands mother and aunts This is Harry, My friend Lisa has great fun!! at meal times with him.
These messy pics seemed to be just what a neat symmetrical layout called for !!!
Hope you like these ... I shall be back soon (promise) with some pictures of my grandsons. They are doing so well now. Angie xx

SORRY IT'S BEEN SO LONG

At last I am putting fingers to keys … well two fingers anyway
Things have really been happening over the past month or so. The most important was that the twins were sent home… a few days early … not that Emma was complaining.They were a mere 5 weeks old or you could say ‘minus 3 weeks’ and Ben had not even reached 5lbs but home they went.

MID-DAY NAP

BEN

JAKE

It looks as though Jake had a temporary problem with milk, which may have been caused by a virus destroying the enzymes or the enzymes may not have developed fully. Whatever the reason he’s fine now and appears to have no sign of a hernia either. After a lot of different problems with breast-feeding Emma was pondering about going totally over to formula but her mind was made up for her when she developed a painful infection due to a blocked duct. The boys are doing even better now and she can see how much milk they are taking. Shame boobs don’t have a gauge on the side. Emma is happier that the choice was made for her. I find it hard to believe that there are still those in the caring profession that make new mothers feel bad when breast feeding does not come easy, or, problems that arise cause them to give up. ... but unfortunately…. there are.

Auntie Jay finally got to see and hold them on their return and Emma’s mum then came over from Ireland to give her daughter some much needed TLC and moral support. It was my turn the following week so for four days I had the fun of feeding and cuddling my beautiful grandsons. I didn’t change them as they do it on a mat on the floor and my knees are well past kneeling and from the pungent smells issuing forth from their nappies I was relived!!!

We tried some hand and foot painting as the proud parents wanted a record of just how tiny their sons’ feet were but those tiny hands were not going to open up for anyone, once they were painted!. We did, just about, manage some footprints

One could say that Steve and Emma have four babies as they have 2 cats as well. Tigger is 13 now and tolerates the new kitten, Puck. Although Tigger would never admit it, she likes the company and the occasional race around the house but she has little time for the new humans. Puck however thinks he has two new brothers and doesn’t really like sharing his mum with them. He also feels that what is theirs is also his.





I do not know how these new parents are surviving on so little sleep as, until the Thursday I was there , they were doing 3 hourly feeds, which leaves a gap of 2 hour if you are lucky and even less when they are bathed. Steve will fall asleep anywhere, if he stays still for more than 1 minute and that includes the train, the station, lunch time at work!!!! feeding time...HIS that is!


They are trying to manoeuvre the routine so they might, with a bit of luck, soon get a glorious 4-hour stretch during the night.
They are wonderful parents ... so chilled, well on the outside anyway, and certainly any stress is not being passed to the boys. How I wish I had been like them with my first, or even my second. I think I was the perfect model of ‘the stressed new mother’.


While I was over their due date arrived. They were 8 weeks on the 16th, which is where their social skills are measured from, or 2 days, which is where their developmental skills are measured. I cannot see how it all works as some social skills cannot develop until some developmental skills have matured!!!! How can they learn to smile by seeing those around them smile if their eyes do not focus properly?

On the Friday I was over, they weighed in at a healthy 5lb12 ½ oz for Ben but an even healthier 6lb 7 ½ oz for Jake. Having said that Ben actually put the most on this week. It is amazing how preoccupied and excited we are about how much weight babies put on and then worry about weight gain once they are at school.

One thing they have noticed is that baby clothes sizes make no sense. Having bought a minimum of 3-5lb, they expected that at 5ish lbs they would be using 5-7lb clothes … not so as they are still too small to wear them!!!! and some of their 0-3mths look as though they would fit a 2 year old!!!! If companies bother to suggest an age and state a weight why are they not all the same size after all 10lbs are 10lbs not 15 or 20. and baby clothes are not cheap so it would be handy if they fitted the size they were meant to . Sorry ... jumped on my soapbox there for a moment. Hope to manage another post before to long

Been a bit Pre-occupied!

So what have I been doing for the past month ….
Not a lot ….. only kidding …. The most important thing in my life , by a very long way, was that I became NANA on 21st June at 10.21am, for the very first time . I think I am still in shock even though I was awaiting the happy event …..only not quite this soon.My daughter …the proud Auntie, has put pictures all over her blog and here are a few of my favourites....

BEN ABOVE and JAKE BELOW

JAKE in White and BEN in Blue.

I have wanted this for so long ( I’m 61 now) and then I learnt that my first grandchild was going to be twins and that the twins were identical boys. This wonderful news however, was closely followed by being told about all the things that could go wrong!!!. I therefore had to curb my excitement and I found it quite hard not to window shop for my future grandsons. As the weeks passed I felt a little safer buying an outfit or three! but still remained very restrained.
Everything was going so well and then I learnt that there were problems and unfortunately they had to be born 8 weeks early. For twins at 32 weeks they were a good size3lbs8.5oz and 3lb 5.5oz and used their lungs but Jacob and Benjamin had to be whisked away to the Neonatal ICU to be hooked up to all manner of monitors. Like all newborns’ they lost some of their birth weight and then put it all back on. They had to be kept a sleep for as much time as possible in order to do so. Ben has had jaundice, both had a spell of holding their breath, both have had problems with temperature control and Jake doesn’t seem to want to suck at anything for more than a few seconds.
I was able to see them at 14 days and they were so cute. I found myself staring at each of them trying to see if there was any differences’. Every time I thought I had found one it became obvious that there really were none except for a slight difference in size at the moment. I feel they will be playing a lot of tricks on their Nana as they grow up.
I still have not been able to touch them so I can’t wait till they can go home and I can visit and cradle them both in my arms.
At the tender age of 3 weeks they have both reached the important landmark of 4lb. Jake was first to hit the 4lb mark and be transferred, from his incubator, to a hot cot but instead of being in a cute little vest he had to be dressed in a ….vest, a baby grow, a cardigan and a woolly hat and then lie under 2 blankets and a muslin sheet. Ben had to wait for his transfer but he skipped the hot cot as they were then both transferred to cool cots on the 14th because their temperature control had kicked in.

Steve and Emma were so happy and they were able to give them their first bath on the 15th … which the boys were NOT impressed with.

The 16th brought more stress to the new parents who had managed to relax a little over the past few days ….. Steve finally got the nurses to take seriously a problem he and Emma had noticed … Jakes abdomen was very distended and had been obviously bigger than Bens for some time. Tests were done and it looks as though Jake is Lactose intolerant but they still are awaiting some more results. The other problem is that he may have a Hernia due to the swelling or a weakened area that could develop one later. Poor little thing had to be basically starved so that they could see what was happening. Now he has a special feed and is being monitored but it will delay his departure from hospital. They are four weeks old now and weigh 4lb 11oz (Jake) and 4lb 6oz (Ben)

Back soon with more updates. Maybe I will get some scrapping done soon, I have been a bit absorbed in my family history research recently.