It gets better!!!!

Just had a letter from the DWP saying that we're entitled to the Maternity grant and it should be paid into my account tomorrow!!! Already been earmarked for buying a dishwasher, highchair, travel cot and also bumping up Neil's salary when he takes paternity leave as that's only £106 a week!!! Wish we'd known about it when Matthew was born as it might have made things a bit less frought but hey... you live and learn!!

Fab day!!!!

(so far anyway!) Took OH's car for it's MOT today and I think we both expected it to fail miserably but.....it passed!!!! Had a few advisories that need fixing before next year but so chuffed that it got through. Mind you - it is over the other side of town but does cheap MOTs - £25 instead of the usual £50 odd. Luckily it's just a short walk away from Morrisons and McDonalds do having dropped the car off I went to Morrisons first to get a paper, TV guide and baby magazine and then went to put my feet up in McD's with a sausage McMuffin and a latte. Aftewr the shock of finding out that the car had passed I popped into The Range as I'm still waiting for them to have some more Dovecraft adhesive refills in but they didn't have any. Still managed to spend £20 though on the DCWV spring stack and then 2 gorgeous 6" x 6" paper packs:

OK - so I know they're very floral but the colours are just gorgeous and they'll be great for cards if I can ever bring myself to cut them up!

Just seen that the lovely Shirl has asked why I don't want the rest of the Hero Arts alphabet sets - Shirl I already have the rest!!! :D Anyway - if I get them all it covers me for every eventuality and we can call the baby anything we want!

Wishlist

OK - so with all the new stuff coming out for CHA it's the time of year when I compile a wishlist including all the other stuff I want that I haven't got yet!! Thanks to Nat for most of the links for these!!!: Hero arts Clear Design stamps – A,B,C,E,F,G,H,I,L,N,O,R,U,Z Fancy Pants acrylic stamps – pollen dust KI Memories clear stamps – modern alpha, basics, bubbletter alphas, it’s a boy icons, surprise icons, it’s a girl icons, greetings icons, KI celebration collection – surprise Scenic Route - Metropolis collection

Banana Frog - Jeannie Shrimpton, Pharmacy, Teen lower large, Make a chain, retro baubles,

Will add to the list as I go along!!!

Useless

at updating!!!! Sent off my grant application and also had a visit from a Warm Front surveyor who has recommended that we have loft insulation and a new boiler. My Photobox order arrived and was completely duplicated so I had 132 prints instead of 66! Have been busy sending copies of photos all around the country but am looking forward to scrapping with mine eventually. Only managed to get a couple of cards made - the engagement card:

Jackie likes pink so I wanted to go for a grungy pink/black kind of card. Loved these K&Co papers but haven't got any photos to use them with!

We went to the party on Saturday night leaving my folks looking after the kids. It's the first time that Neil and I have been out on our own together for about a year but I think we both enjoyed it. Matthew wasn't so pleased and did cry when we left but apparently he settled quite quickly and went to bed with no problems. Mum did say that we ought to go out more often as they'd quite happily babysit but I think I'd feel quite guilty asking them as they then have a 40 minute drive over here and the same to get home.

Also managed to make a quick birthday card for my step-dad whose birthday it was yesterday.

Used some DCWV 8x8 cardstock but didn't think about an envelope to fit until afterwards which luckily I had! Also had to change the design halfway through as I ended up with a lovely black innky fingerprint right in the centre of the card. Have to say that I do love that black Brilliance ink though. The paper on here is HOTP (I'm no paper snob!) from one of their cardmaker's packs and then I used Banana Frog stamps, Scrapworks alphadotz and hugz. The rub-on is one of the newer Scrapworks ones. Gave up on making any of the other cards and did cheat by buying 2 but still need to make a new home card. I have a stinking cold at the moment so not feeling very creative but will hopefully get around to it in the next few days. In the meantime I'm off to lie down for an hour before picking the kids up from school. Jamie was going to a "creative expression" workshop today that his teachers sent him to so looking forward to hearing how that went.

All OK.......

......at my midwife appointment. Baby's head down with it's bum under my rib cage and headbutting my bladder! Had bloods taken, got my MAT B1 certificate and midwife signed my Maternity Grant application which I'm going to send off tomorrow. Applied for a Warm Front grant when I got home so we'll wait and see if we're eligible for that. Just taken kids to school and for the second day in a row I had to leave Matthew crying his eyes out. He's absolutely fine on the walk to school but as soon as he gets to the classroom it all goes pear-shaped. I don't know what's brought it on as he used to be absolutely fine every morning but now he doesn't want to stay in school, won't let go of me and becomes near hysterical. After a quiet day yesterday, spent mainly watching the Murray/Nadal match on tv I've got a bit to do today. Need to make a birthday card for OH's cousin, a birthday card for our nephew (16 at the weekend), an engagement card for one of OH's workmates (as we're off to her engagement party on Saturday) and a new home card for OH's sister and her family. Looking at that list they're all mainly for OH's family and friends so maybe I should tell him to make them all!!!! Waiting to see if my Photobox order arrives today as it was despatched yesterday. Now used up 66 of my 600 print credits. Off to put some towels in the washing machine and then try and sort these cards out!

Aaaargh!!!!

Went in to "town" today to pick up the new Argos catalogue and decide that while I was there I'd also try to collect my free Bounty "pregnancy pack" with the samples and vouchers etc in. Parked in the car park at "bottom" end of town and went to smaller Boots store to be told "sorry,we haven't got any - try the big store". Then followed a long walk (which wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have pelvic pain and sciatica!) up to the larger Boots store in the new shopping centre. Cue - long wait at checkout to be told that I needed to go to the other checkouts at opposite end of store followed by "sorry, we've run out of them". Into Mothercare next and cue another loooooong wait as Sunday drivers are obviously taking over as shop assistants and on a "go slow"! followed by "sorry we haven't got any left but we may have some next week". Aaaargh" As if I haven't got better things to do and walking doesn't hurt so much! Rant over! Bought 600 print credits at Photobox tonight for the bargain price of £18 in their January sale so have been busy doctoring photos in Photoshop tonight ready to upload at some point. OK -so 600 is rather a lot but I reckon we may well be taking a lot of photos over the next year and various family members may want the odd copy or two! Have my first midwife appointment in 6 weeks tomorrow morning and hoping that everything is OK. It's time for the dreaded iron deficiency blood test - I do loathe having my blood taken - pretty funny when you bear in mind that I used to be a nurse! I've filled in the application for a Maternity Grant and will be taking that in with me for the midwife to sign. Luckily I'm her first appointment of the day so hopefully it won't be a 50 minute wait this time! Hoping to be back by 10 so I can shove a load of washing in the machine and then sit down to watch the Murray/Nadal match live in teh Australia Open. Hopefully if the baby gets used to the sounds of tennis on the tv I'll be able to spend 2 whole glorious weeks glued to the tv while Wimbledon is on! In the meantime I'm off to do a quick forum check before heading off to bed and another night off being kicked, poked and prodded by this little baby (who incidentally will have a name if it's a girl but will be known as "it" if it's a boy ) - we still can't find a name we both like!

Had to sort out the scanner

to the right settings etc before using it - what a shame I didn't think of cleaning the scanner bed while I was at it! Did this LO:

Me and my brother back in the 70's. What gorgeous coats we had on! Just don't look at my socks!

Also those cards I made over the weekend - well 3 of them anyway as the other 2 are so simple it's not really worth posting them here:

The multicoloured flower card was the first time I've used these stamps and also the first proper go at using waterbrushes with my Marvy pens. Think I need a bit of practice!

Busy......

................doing nothing, sleeping the whole day through! Well, I wish I was! Have just spent the best part of an hour going through the airing cupboard, tidying it up and chucking out loads of stuff. Hoping to make some space so I can use it as temporary accomodation for Jamie's clothes so his old wardrobe can be dismantled and we can start re-decorating his room. Did some scrapping (1 LO!) at the weekend and made a few "thanks" cards for the kids to send but will post them on here later once I've checked the scanner is working OK. We have the new PC in now and it's luvvverly! A lot faster than the old one and doesn't crash all the time. The monitors are also bigger than the last ones - we now have 2 x 19" LCDs and they're fab - just need to sort out the brightness on screen. Right off to finish my coffee and then pick kids up from school.

I did try

updating yesterday but then Blogger lost everything I wrote so I lost it!!! Kids went back to school and am so pleased to report that Matthew settled in really well and didn't even wave/kiss/hug me goodbye! Christmas decorations are down and the laundry pile is almost cleared. I actually did my first LO of the year: This is me back when I was a baby in 1970 enjoying my chocolate pudding. There are other photos in existence of me taken slightly after this one and absolutely covered in the stuff but we can't find them anywhere! Today I'm hoping to do some more scrapping this morning while I wait for the delivery of our new PC from Dell. The one we have at the moment is so slow and keeps crashing when you're in the middle of something so we decided to buy a new one while there were offers on. It's a buy now pay later deal so we have a whole year to save up for it - we managed last year to pay for our new tv this way so should be able to do it again. The old PC is eventually going to go up in the boys room once we've redecorated and put them in the one room together - we just need to buy a cheap computer desk to go in there.

School starts.......

tomorrow!!!! OK so I'll have the house back to myself for most of the day but it'll be so weird not having the 2 boys around all the time and I'll miss not having them to talk to. Must take this opportunity to do something constructive though instead of surfing all day! Have a million and one things to do starting with

• taking down all the Christmas decorations,
• tackling the laundry pile,
• tidying the kids rooms in readiness to start redecorating and moving boys in together before the baby arrives,
• recording all our vinyl albums, reducing hisses and pops and splitting into seperate tracks so we can keep them on PC and actually listen to them
• do some more scrapping - no more DT stuff so everything I do will be just for me!
• tidy the rest of the house
• find all baby items that need washing to freshen them up (blankets, sheets, babygros, sleepsuits)
• decide on a name!!! Have a girl's name sorted but having major problems choosing a boy's name!
• Put my feet up occasionally
• go and see a Dr if this pain gets any worse (think I have S.P.D.!)
• midwife appt at end of Jan - blood test time!
• apply for Maternity grant
• order pushchair, travel cot and highchair

Hopefully that's mostly everything covered!

Have had a really great Christmas and New Year - quite quiet and didn't get to do the usual big family gathering but I quite enjoyed it with it being just the 4 of us having our Christmas together. Still finding it difficult to believe that this time next year we'll have an 8 month old baby (only 14 weeks left to go until B-Day now!)

Been back on Ebay today and won another 2 sets of the Hero Arts clear stamps - letters Y and K are now on their way to me so I'll have: D, J, K, M, P, Q, V, W and Y (all the ones you tend to use a lot LOL!). Only need another 17 to complete the set now. Still can't believe the price of these in the shops over here - £13.50 a set! Also on my list of "things I want but will have to wait for" are the new KI Memories stamps - how lovely are they?!?

Right must go to bed now as it's an early start tomorrow - have already decided that housework can wait tomorrow. I'm going to scrap!

Happy New Year!!!!

Happy New Year to you all and may 2007 be a great one for you!! My aim this year is to beat the 74 LOs and 39 cards that I made in 2006 - will I manage it or not? Am going to start this afternoon and hopefully play with the gorgeous new Banana Frog stamps that Mum bought me for Christmas - dying to have a play.