best of intentions... I can't be the only one

So when I found out I was pregnant I was ecstatic to put it mildly. Then the nausea kicked in despite my best intentions of keeping it at bay.
See I figured I've done this before...3 times before in fact I know what I'm doing.
This time I have more time on my hands, more so now my college course has finished and I've pushed doing a degree back until next year...when things should be more settled.
So I have read all the books that come in your packs from midwife but there's only so many times you can read what happens this week, next week and in ten weeks time.
This being said I made other intentions to keep me busy as I am so bored now college has finished and six weeks holidays are over and it's just me, babylea and Jake the dog for daytime company.
Intentions are always made but somehow never get done..or at least in my case.
So my intentions I made at the beginning of September are as follows:

1. To learn a new skill - given that a new learn how to crochet magazine was advertised on TV I figured that would be as good as any.
2. To get back reading books..it's been too long since I've read on a regular basis.
3. To get more of a social life going save me staying in all day.
4. Get going on finding the rest of the baby stuff.
5. Make and bake lots of lovely treats..again something that gets too long since I last done it.

So how far have I got with this list??

1. I read the magazine attempted to do a coupe of 'stitches' it didn't look right and I gave up. The intention is to have a look at the DVD with it and see if I can 'get it' from there.
2. I've read a few..some good ones the problem is if I get a good book I have a job to put it down and means the book is finished within 2-3 days. I have joined the library but struggle to find books I really want to read..I will persevere with it.
3. Not done too badly on this front I rejoined the netmums network and met a few nice ladies from there that I keep in contact with on facebook. Also met up with a few friends for drinks and catch up which has made a nice change. I'm hoping this social network will continue and increase once 'babylea' arrives and baby brain has turned me into an unknown person.
4. I have got baby stuff just I need more lol I know what I need/want it's just a case of finding it at the right price..ebay is always good for this. Problem is once I'm online everything else goes out the window.
5. This is one that really gets to me as I keep thinking chocolate cake...mmm...ooo and homemade rice pudding..sadly it just doesn't seem to manifest. It will happen just not sure when.

So as I say with the best of intentions I plan on still trying to attempt my list how successful I will be remains to be seen. All these things I want to do and the time is going so fast that I can't believe we nearly at the end of September already.

come when you like..with what you like...thanks..not

I am sat here this morning drinking hot chocolate..my favourite drink at the moment as 'baby lea' refuses to allow me to drink my usual drug of strong coffee for the last 16 weeks. God I miss my coffee :(
How am I able to sit here drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream? My shopping has arrived early...almost 2 hours early.
I'm not lazy that I don't go and do my shopping in store, it's just easier and more convenient to do it online. Why? Because the last time I went and did a shop I spent more then double what I normally do..this then combined with stress from the  amount of trolley banging and plain bad manners that went on within the aisles..I've admitted defeat and stuck solely to online food shopping.
However, for all it's good points: convenient, money saving, easier and less stressful it also has it's bad points which can make the last one of the good points not so good.
What am I going on about?? Substitutes...and delivery times. You make your shopping list you put your items in the trolley and the store picks your shopping for you..substitutes are supposed to be of similar products to original ordered. I do wonder what people do these jobs. For instance, I don't normally order bread as hubby is fussy about his bread...don't ask. But on one occasion I did and never again...I ordered a normal medium sliced white loaf..every store has them. Apparently not when my shopping was being picked...I was sent a substitute that was a smaller loaf...you know the ones I mean ..the ones that look as though 2 bites out of it and the slice would be gone. How is that a substitute for a normal loaf? 
After this and other dreadful experiences with substitutes I have tried to remember when ordering to knock of the allowance of all substitutes as I'd rather have nothing than ridiculous items I cannot use. The experience has never been helped by the list telling you what your substitutes are as it never says the exact description, so taking the loaf example again I never imagined it would have been a smaller loaf so didn't know until unpacking.
As for delivery times, I do not mind if they decided to come early or I'm first delivery in my time slot of course that's always a good thing. What I do mind is when they decide to come ridiculously early like the last 2 times they have come almost 2 hrs early. The whole point of booking delivery times is so you know when to be in for should you have other things to do..at least I'm sure that's why you book time slots?? Admittedly I have been rung a few times by drivers to make sure I am in..which I was grateful for, as if I'm out I'm never far away and so could come back should I need to.
So for now I'm going to breathe deeply...finish my nice hot chocolate...while watching the weather change again..autumn is definitely here :)

Autumn finally here....

The sun was shining on Saturday yet I still felt as though there was a nip in the air maybe that was a fore warning of what was to come?
Daughter was at her dad's this weekend so me and hubby decided to redecorate her room while she was gone. See since we moved here in march it's never quite felt her room..with the baby boy wallpaper and blue stained carpet, it needed doing.
The new carpet was laid by my lovely father in law and hubby on Friday night and though it's lovely it's not pink or overly girlie as we need to think that we may want to swap the girls and boys rooms round at some point. However, Saturday afternoon was taken by the smell of paint and the sound of a roller..I don't mind d.i.y never have to be honest but as it was our first project hubby did most of it while I..erm..supervised ;) lol
One less job to be done before baby arrives anyway and the room now feels like a girls room..perfect.

Anyway, I went off topic there...autumn..I think we can safely say that it is here..I doubt we'll see the sun again and if we do it won't be really warm. Just them sunny autumn days that are nice to go walking in but need to still wrap up..which is the weathers way of saying winters on it's way....oh heck.
As the rain started to drizzle yesterday the decision was made to get the fire stoked up.
 I love our house not only as this will be our first winter in it but the real fire we had to replace the gas one...nothing quite beats it. The flames, the heat, the smell, the noise and being cuddled up in front of it makes the weather worth it.

Today and the weather is just as miserable as yeaterday..if not worse. Chucking it down..no suprise there it always seems to have a habit of doing that for the school run just to be kind to us mums. Getting through the school gates is a big enough challenge as it but with umbrellas ranging from the size of a teacloth to ones you could fit a group of golfers under makes it so much more so. The slight ray of amusement came I was by the sight of someone under an umbrella wearing shorts..I mean really??  How do the 2 go together...they obviously knew it was raining hence the umbrella..so why the shorts?..wishful thinking? other than wanting to freeze to death and catch death of cold I am still baffled as to why anyone would be wearing shorts knowing it's raining and bloody cold.

Another sign of autumn and the end of summer for me is I feel not well..am sure I'm coming down with a cold though I hope not. As much as I hate being ill, the sneezing and rough feeling throat suggests I may well be looking like rudolph before the week is out....a rather large rounded rudolph I may add.

I've looked on the negative side of autumn I know...but it's not all bad in fact I love autumn.
The cold nights will mean a burning fire and cuddles up on the sofa.
Walking the dog and the kids through the chase while watching the change in leaf colour and trees.
Being wrapped up warm on walks and coming in to make hot choclate with cream and marshmallows (kids favourite) and last but not by means least it means baby will soon be here...just 16 weeks and counting...oh yes autumn is finally here.

Being taken over....

I thought I felt the baby move at around 15 weeks..but I thought it was a little too early (reading from all the knowledge books). But when I went for a check up at almost 16 weeks was told in actual fact I was probably right and baby was wriggling..as excited as i was I felt disappointed because husband couldn't feel what I did and enjoy the moments too. With this in mind I was waiting for the kicks to start so that he indeed could get the same feeling as I did. Although she's been kicking a while..it's never been the strong kicks that you see just by looking at your tummy. All that changed this week...and for the first time my husband actually felt our baby..the grin on his face said it all and he still gets amazed by it now.
However, the downside to this amazing feeling is, as all mums will know, now it means my body is no longer my own lol. from changing strange shapes to sudden belly ripples to the bursting feeling for the loo regardless of how much you have or haven't drunk.

What a weekend :)

Hope anyone actually reading this has had a good weekend...I did :)
First off, this weekend was my 2 sons turn to come and stay at ours. the eldest has had flu so didn't come but my youngest couldn't wait..he came bounding out his dad's house and straight into the car.
The sun was shining too( never a bad thing for a weekend) this meant that he could spend time in the garden..doing the jobs he finds himself to do lol.
What made it all the better was we['d already decided to go to Blackpool to see the illuminations a few weeks back. We did this last year and was the first time my youngest son or Katie had ever seen them and they loved it.

With all the excitement we set off with a warmness still in the air. As we got further up north the clouds got darker..never a good sign and I prayed it wasn't going to rain. Not that it would matter as we'd got the umbrellas in the boot but nothing worse than walking around in the rain at night.

 The only problem with walking through Blackpool is that obviously you have the hen/stag do's and general parties of people in and out of the bars not really caring who they bump into. To avoid this we decided to walk along the seafront...the sea was rough..so much so you could see the waves crashing with their white foam even in the dark. Luckily, it didn't rain but by god it was windy!! This was only made worse with walking along the seafront but it had to be better than walking into all sorts on the other side.
The illuminations were fab as always and the kids especially liked the trams that were lit up for the occasion.
We finished our evening off by going into the amusements and letting the kids have a go on the penny drop machines. Katie had a fascination with tickets and so we used a drop machine that gave out tickets instead of money...seemed a fair deal and katie knew she'd get something at the end of it.

We were there until it closed..in fact we didn't realise the time...time flies when having fun.
Eventually after a long drive home (always seems much longer coming home) we finally got to bed..I've never been so much in need of my bed as I did then.
Worth feeling tired for just to see the look on the kids faces and knowing they enjoyed it...and next year knowing we will have our little baby lea with us makes me smile.

U forget..then it hits u again

As other mum's will know the older your children get the less the worries are supposed to be. Something else I'd forgotten until friday afternoon..I mean just what that feeling of worry and panic feels like. I've got this all to come again..oh my.
So friday afternoon while attempting to wait for the urge of lunch to arise the phone rang..my daughters school. I got that horrible feeling in my stomach that something was wrong..however I waited for them to say 'nothing to worry about' it didn't come. They were ringing as she'd had a nosebleed (nothing unusal in that she suffers a lot with them) but they were concerned as it had started 30 minutes ago and still not stopped.
The computer and TV were off and trainers on before I was even off the phone to dart out the door to the school.
Once I got to the school, slight panic and out of breath to find she was ok just the school had been concerned as the bleeding was only now starting to slow down.
We went home and had lots of cuddles to a sigh of relief from me to know at least even given the panic she was ok..apart from needing to be cleaned up.
I'm not good with blood but when it comes to your kids you have no choice especially when you have two that are subject to have nosebleeds without warning. Katie on the other hand takes it in her stride and doesn't normally let it worry her, in fact she's quite pratical when these happen.
As these occasions of panic are few and far between I did think that I have this all to come again, though it's always worth it you can't help thinking about how much you forget.

What is going on??

Ok so it's lunchtime understandably I'm hungry (or is that baby lea?) either way I need food. So bearing this in mind I make my way into the kitchen...now what do I fancy to eat? how hard is that question to answer? Normally it wouldn't be..but since being pregnant I've found more often than not this question impossible to answer. Cheese on toast, egg on toast, cheese sandwich, corned beef sandwich..none of these seem to be the right answer.
Yesterday I had something I used to eat growing up...Eggy bread :) I love it nothing like having eggy bread with tomato sauce..lovely. Even my kids love this, so during the holidays this is always a winner for lunchtime.

But today I just can't decide. So I've decided until I feel more towards what I (or baby lea) wants to eat.
So to take the hunger off  I'll have a bag of roast beef monster munch, these have been something I've been eating since I found out I was pregnant. To be honest it's strange because I'm not normally a crisps person but I would easily wolf down a multipack of 6 with no help at all (unless you class baby lea as helping me eat them).
I open the crisp packet to realise that there only seems to be half the packet left...now I know that at times I have 'baby brain' but I can openly assure you that I haven't eaten a single crisp...but to look in the packet seems to coinside the opposite.
Obviously some invisible person has stole half my crisps or the packet is far too big for the amount put in..not sure which one is worse? So instead of a full packet of crisps I now have what appears as half a packet and trying to not drop the crumbs everywhere..until lunchtime can fully resume :)

The what??

Moshi monsters...what on earth are they?? I'd never even heard of them until last year..and being truthful I'm still not much wiser. Where did I hear about them? My now 6 yr old daughter.  Where she found out about them from I've still no idea, but she loves them. She started collecting the collector cards, as well as some of the toys and even on occasion had the tattoos. She likes nothing more than going on the moshi monster website to adopt her own 'pet' and doing stuff with it (a bit like a virtual tamagotchi or furbie lol).
I can't complain though as it keeps her happy and entertained, while collecting the cards gives her a connection with her friends.

It's when she asks me what I think about certain moshi monsters..or how does she do this? I feel daft when I say I haven't a clue what you're talking about. With this response she proceeds to tell me all about her favourite moshi monsters, as well as which ones she needs within her card collection and what Dr Strangeglove (who's supposedly the baddy??) has been upto..lol

But it does make me wonder where people come up with these things. I understand when TV programmes influence trends like Dora, Fifi, bob the builder etc. But then now and again you get things like moshi monsters that come out of nowhere and seems to be popular overnight.
Something else she likes which is quite a big trend (so I believe) is zhu zhu pets..to which kept her entertained for over an hour last night, running around the living room trying to catch them and stop them from disappearing under the sofas lol.

What I find strange is how these things suddenly creep up on us parents(or just me)? Because it seems they go from not having heard of them to all you hear about. Funnily enough more often than not they seem to appear just before Xmas...convenient I think.
Just to make sure we are aware of what our children 'want' for Xmas the adverts for toys start in the middle of August at every opportunity...oh the joys lol  What happened to Xmas presents being simple....you know a doll and a pram for girls and cars/trains for boys job done lol

morning :)

Something very rare happend this morning...not sure how it happend but it did...we actually got to school on time..woohoo. Like most mums it is never my intention to be late it just somehow always happens. I've been ready to leave and then I remember that I haven't picked something up or I need to do that before leaving and before you know it..5/10 mins have passed and now you're late.
This morning tho something was different and we made it on time even despite the traffic.
However, despite this great achievement this morning I was also feeling a cross between mr greedy and mr rush from mr men..this seems to be a regualar shape for me of late. Little miss baby lea not only moves but decides for her own amusement that making mummy's tummy in funny shapes would be a great pastime for her until she arrives...or at least until she gets restricted lol.
I can't complain as much as this sometimes freaks me out..mr rush is not a good look (when she decides to stick her bum or head out from just under my ribs) I know that at least I know she's moving and that can only be a good thing. Husband finds that me freaking out about this quite strange...why? because obviously I've been through all this before. But either it's something I didn't experience or it's something I missed being busy working while pregnant with my other 3.
So the plan for today is to scare myself witless by reminding myself how much pain I'm likely to experience in 18 weeks time by watching midwives on catch-up. As much as it interests me I couldn't subject husband to watch it....if he did I'm sure he'd refuse to even come to the hosital lol ..and so for this reason I keep him away from these programmes.

First time for everything......still nervous

So this is the first time I've written a blog...first time for everything but doesn't stop you being nervous though does it?
How strange does that sound? 33 years of age...had 3 children and starting  my life again with my 2nd husband, having another baby....yet I'm nervous of starting this blog.
Feels a little bit like you do the first time you start somewhere new....school, workplace etc...wondering what if people don't like you? what if I say the wrong thing? because quite frankly I have no idea what I'm doing lol.
So if no idea what I'm doing why have I started a blog? good question. I've heard of blogs and thought it sounded interesting...not only that but I feel like I am literally starting my life over again and it seemed maybe a good way of documenting my journey.
 I have 3 children 12, 9 and 6 and now am having another baby with the love of my life. So many people say you know what you doing ..you've done it before and I have...how ever so much has changed!
I'm older for a start, so when I see some mums at my daughters school I feel really old. Not all but some arrive to drop their children and it feel like a fashion show some mornings...seriously. Some of these mums are dressed so immaculatley that I wonder what time they actually get up in a morning....their hair is immaculate, full make up on, dressed fashionably with heels that I would have thought should carry health & safety warnings.
I'm left wondering if I'm a bad mum rolling out of bed at 7am begrudgingly getting dressed to then proceed to get my daughter dressed and ready for school. Some times I straighten my hair but that depends on how tired I am..same goes for make-up..not a make-up person to be honest but sometimes I feel a little better with a little mascara and eyeshadow on.
So now I've given a nervous rambling....I'm going to press publish and hope that I've not gone totally mad and rambled so much people are thinking I'm in need of sectioning.