Chubby is CUTE!

Cookie is getting big!

Someone recently said that babies learn to smile just at the point when you want to give them back (6 weeks ish). In the same vein of thought, it's possible that Cookie has become incredibly cute just to get me over this latest hump.

Psalm 46:10 again. When will i learn.

im obsessed with wanting to know i am doing well. Of making lists and ticking things off, of trying to find a way to gauge progress, or some route through life that shows i am a good person, or at least someone improving.

I am tempted daily to make quantifiable lists of targets so that i can tell i am doing ok.

I am a good mother if:
My children eat a variety of foods each week
Do not eat sweets everyday
The girls make something with me every week
I keep to a rough routine
We have dinner together every night at roughly 6ish
The girls have homemade duvet covers and sheets
I don't swear in front of the children

I am a good wife if:
I do the ironing often so that Xss always has a clean ironed shirt to wear to work
I have sex once a week (oh controversial)
I do the cooking AND the washing up at dinner time as often as possible.
I do the mending
I buy Xss a Chocolate Orange twice a year
I buy presents for Xss's relatives with the knowledge that the day before the occasion he will ask me for help to find them something.
etc

The lists go on, I am a good sister, friend, version of myself, Christian, woman, global resident.

However the truth is much more messy. None of this matters, its hard for me to accept, but none of these scales matter, i could be crap at all of it, but it will still be ok. Life continues. God loves me. That is all that matters

I am a good child if:


Be still and know that i am God Psalm 46:10

Happy Red Nose Day!

Nose sponsored by Bibi's father*

*first epic fail as a parent (other than the innumerable times that i have failed to stop her crying) when we searched 5 different supermarkets the night before and couldn't find one.

Wasted Youth?

I like lists.

Here is a list of things i wrote when i was 30 that i felt I will have been happy to achieve before i am 40.

Our goals:

1) eat only one food type for a day (i'm thinking crisps)
2) get three more children from somewhere
3) live in a warm country for some months
4) travel around in a campervan for 1 month
5) travel for 6 months with some children
6) obtain a house and personalise each room, get a dark coloured carpet
7) build a book case made from crates/book wall!
8) go paintballing
9) throw a party with a bouncy castle
10) dO soMe fuN
11) build a tree house
12) get a social work degree
13) get a DOG
14) explore adoption
15) write some childrens stories
16) Really understand one book of the Bible (John?)
17) Go on a night (sleeper) train
18) go to Lisbon
19) Sponsor Reyna until she's an adult
20)  enter a photo exhibition
21) Go island hopping in Greece
22) Get a proper compost heap
23) get a dress from All Saints
24) grow vegetables in a greenhouse

Xss also wants to:
a) go back to Vinopearl
b) learn to meditate
c) learn the drums with Starbucks.