So far Not Good. It's one of THOSE days.

Small child has cough and was up half the night moaning sporadically. I didn't sleep until 1am but wasn't productive at the same time (unless you count playing bejewelled blitz on Facebook... so, erm, no!). This morning we were late to preschool. The only successful mission was the one to Sainsburys to get the Flaxseed so I could finish part of a gift. Got home and lost all sewing mojo and now the last sewing machine needle I can find has broken whilst I was trying to fix my ironing board cover. Half a bag done so I suppose that is a minor achievement. I was late getting the girls, Clara fell asleep before we got home (it is literally round the corner!) but woke up as soon as we got in so it took some serious cuddling to get her to go back to sleep, intersperced with her whimpering "no sleep, want to play" and Phoebe's very loud "Mummy, can I have popcorn? Mummy can I have a sammidge? Mummy Whatchoo doing wiv Clara?" etc etc etc. Clara is finally asleep in bed and I hope she wakes up in a better mood, Phoebe has been sated with microwave popcorn (hey, it fell into the basket in Sainsburys).

I have to get Mum's birthday lunch sorted in the next two days and make her birthday cake. Neither of which I mind doing and am quite looking forward to it is just finding the time and energy to actually DO it. At least her birthday gift is now totally sorted and just needs wrapping so that is one less thing isn't it!

I also have to sort out Phoebe's 4th birthday invitations for next Sunday, I did have them done last night but then a small child found a biro and well, it would be quiet charming if you could read beyond the scribbles. Next week is going to be filled with doing as well, birthday cakes (currently she is wants a spiderman cake.... all that blue icing [sob]) party food and decorations. As well as looking at the other two potential schools for her on Monday (hurrah for extra day at preschool for Clara).

I also have my emergency appt with the CPN (community psych nurse) tomorrow so I am terrified about that too. My friend Jane made an observation on Monday that it is no wonder mothers take longer to recover from depression as just stopping is very rarely doable. Man, what I wouldn't give to just stop for a bit.

To Do List Update:

7 Morsbags - 6 down 1 to go... need more fabric (again!)
2 Well Woman Packs - Erm... I'll get back to you!
5 evening bags - See above
1 shopping tote - Done!
2 Humpy Dumpties - Again, I'll get back to you!
4 Children's hooded scarves - Done!
7 adult scarves - Changed my mind and am making neckwarmers of which I have made 4 (I think... need another fleece. I think I will get a dark blue one this time for a bit of variation).
2 Dolly Changing bags (with stuff in) - 1 down, 1 to go.
5 tutus - 2 down 3 to go.

Not doing too badly, especially as amongst this I have managed to make 2 neck warmers for the girls and Mum's birthday pressie.

I had a small glitch last night when I was making the tote, my thread kept breaking after I changed a needle. It took me almost an hour to work out I had put the needle in backwards... what a dimwit! I am also having a small stress about the Katybags (evening bags) I need to make as I am not sure my needle position is variable on my Janome 2050. I am sure I will work around it but it is worrying me a touch. I really don't have time (or the energy) to do another pattern especially as I have just spent a fair whack on interfacing not to mention I have my heart set on making Katybags.

I have to also add on a dinosaur costume for my friend's son Lexi, it was meant to be on the original list but I didn't add it as I couldn't find a pattern I could adapt. I have now found one and will hopefully be making it very soon. I just need to buy the materials which means waiting for a photobox payment into Paypal but at least I will have a chance to figure out how much fabric I need before ordering. I think I will get started on the spines for down his back though. I think I am also doing a mermaid dress for his sister but I know how I am going to do that.

Wowzers! my carpets are cream afterall!

My very lovely Daddy and StepMum have paid for my carpets to be cleaned to try and help me feel a bit better and take the pressure off a little. Initially they offered a cleaner but we cope with keeping on top of the house work however the big jobs are the ones I struggle with and end up not getting done. The carpets haven't been cleaned in the 5 years we have been living here and were, well, vile! This is after 2 babies (one of whom had spectacular projectile reflux!), 1 cat and 2 goes of post baby hairloss (I have waist length hair...). Anyway the blokey came today and voila... cream carpets again! I am waiting for them to dry and then I will be going around with the can (or 6) of scotchguard to try and keep them in better shape!

Mummy gave me her floor steam cleaner (Dolores her cleaner eyes it with a large dose of suspicion so it hasn't been used chez Mummy) and it has made my downstairs floors properly clean. I have floorboards and tiles downstairs so keeping on top of mopping is a royal PITA. Steam cleaner is like whipping a hoover round, takes 5 mins and I have clean floors :D.

Having a cleaner house certainly lifts the weight a bit. I don't feel like such a disgraceful sloven so much when the house is clean and my surroundings are tidy. Well as tidy as you can get with two whirling dervish children in residence.

I have the oven cleaning to sort out after Christmas and then hopefully things will be much nicer around here. Of course my living room is a pit and a half because I have been sewing this morning (well the carpet cleaner made a hell of a racket so any telly watching was out of the question). I have now made 4 hooded scarves in a fabulous cow print fleece. I am contemplating making horns and ears to go on them to jazz them up a bit but I can't figure out how I will attach them so they look gorgeous. I also bought the rest of the stuff to make my Katybags as soon as I have fluttered my eyelashes at Annabel and borrowed her zipper foot. I have decide upon Gators (neck warmers) for most of the men in my life so now I just have to chose the fleece. They didn't have any manly fleece in the haberdashers unfortunately so I will be shopping online for that. Do you think Snowflakes make a manly pattern?

THEEEERRRRRRRWHHHHHHHHHACK!

Did you hear that? That is the sound of reality hitting me. My baby is going to big school in a year, how?!

Phoebe is 4 on December 6th. Her Primary School application has to be by the 4th December and today we saw the first of 3 potential schools for her. I loved it, it was bright and fun and colourful, the head teacher had a fabulous voice, big hair and wore bright pink tights and came across as a lovely warm woman. However as her talk about the school went on I realised by little baby was going to be going to big school and that it is going to be a whole new episode in her life that was going to start! And we are responsible for the choice of school (well, ish).

Phoebe is so little, so funny and has such a HUGE personality (no, really she does!). She learns in a funny way and is very on the button with most things. She has a cracking sense of humour and a very good grasp of sarcasm and is certainly not afraid to make her opinion known to all and sundry. How is this little unique person going to fit in with 30 other children in her class. How are all her needs going to be met in the scrum. I don't doubt that they will but right now the logistics fail me.

We have two more schools to see, which we are doing on the 30th November and then we have to put them in order of which one we want before sending the application. How do I choose? I loved the one today but I haven't seen the others, what if I hate them or, worse I think, what if I love them all and Phoebe hates it when she starts.

I have brain ache from thinking about it all!

Baby Big Bum is no longer Nappyless!

After a trip out to town on Saturday I managed to replace my AWOL tape measure and so I decided to get cracking with finishing off Phoebe's nappy bag, change mat and doll nappies:

Close up of the nappies:

And the bag:

I am rather pleased with myself, in total it cost £5 for all of it. I had an old dirty bag that I used when the girls were in cloth nappies. I split that in two and used it to line the changing mat. The towel was a £1 bargain from Tesco when I was planning Phoebe's birth and the material I bought for £3.99 for 3 metres in Ikea and I still have LOADS of material left so I might even brave a little dress for Baby Big Bum. I may also zip up some little cloth wipes too.

I still have Clara's set to do but I have another towel and a different material for her. Now I just have to find the time to do it in! I really hope they enjoy these sets, they both have a fascination with nappies and their contents at the moment.

Days Out Thumbs Up: The Snozone Milton Keynes.

Today we did a trip around the M25 to meet up with Grannie, Grande and Aunty Lizzie to play in the snow in Milton Keynes' Snozone. All the adults were feeling a touch jaded after late nights and too much booze from the Gs and Aunty Lizzie. I had a migraine last night so I was feeling a bit rough too and Paul joined in for the hell of it (I am sure he will inform me of his reason as soon as he reads this). We met up after a very uneventful trip at midday in the Costa Coffee for hot chocolate and croissants. When we had finished there we filed into in the Snow area and we booked in. Grannie, Grande and Paul signed up for an hour skiing, the girls and I for tobogganing and Auntie Liz for being Bag handler. Mum et al trotted off to rent salopettes and ski jackets (given that all our kit resides in France) for a very reasonable fee whilst the girls and I went to find helmets for the girls (mandatory wear for under 16s, loads of them out on the side with plenty of choice in sizes).

We got taken out for our tobogganing session, shown the toboggans and then we started the large climb up the slope. Not easy for me holding 3 toboggans (glorified trays), carrying a small whinging child and trying to herd a larger child up the hill with no free hands, in hindsight take Auntie Lizzie in with me to help! Once we were all at the top (someone pinched my toboggan whilst I was on rescue mission to get Phoebe) Clara rode on my lap and Phoebe sort of managed a run on her own (there was a slight blip where she crashed into the barrier but in true Richardson style she got up and got back on again.... woo that girl!). Clara was cold by this point (she doesn't "do" cold...) so I took her back to Auntie Lizzie to get warm and dry. I came back to Phoebe who had made a friend of one of the staff and had her taking up her hill (result for me!) and then she shot down like a bomb! Much giggling and desperation for a 3rd go so up we went. This one was less successful as she had a wet and slippy backside by this point so couldn't stay on the toboggan, therefore about half way down and 3 wipe outs later she decided to attempt going down on her bottom, mostly she got wet and cold from this point on funnily enough so we decided to go back in and watch everyone skiing. Very glad I took spare clothes for both of them, I could have done with some for me too but hey ho!

We watched Grannie, Grande and Paul doing some runs on the ski slope, they assure me it was good skiing (I don't ski so even if I had tried I couldn't have told you what it was like!) and they all had fun. It won't be long before Phoebe and Clara are bombing down whooping with delight.  When they were done (we had to have a stern word with Paul and get The Pointy Finger out to say no more because he wouldn't come in!) we went off to have a lovely lunch at Ask. Then Grannie and I popped into the shops to look at ski gear, I am a very lucky girl and Father Christmas said I could have a pressie early and I got a ski jacket (I have a pull over one currently which is a royal PITA with a sling and we are going to attempt des vacation sans pushchair...gulp). Grannie may have also bribed her Father Christmas into her pressie earlier too but I shall say no more until I have pictorial evidence of her Thing of Beauty! Ebay has provided both of us with bargainatious complimentary salopettes so now everyone is hot to trot for Christmas!

Getting home was a bit trickier and took 3 hours for us but then it was Sunday night, there were roadworks on the M1 and we were headed, along with everyone else, back into London. Still the girls slept for most of it and the rest of the time they talked endlessly about sausages until we found some services and shoved a small pot of cocktail sausages in the back with them... bad parents, bad, bad parents!

Still lovely lovely day, Doctor Who and new Top Gear on telly when we got back. Perfick!

Phoebeism Du jour.

"When I go to the loo, wee wee comes out. And milk. When I am a cow. Not any other time though, that would be silly"