Sashybo - Back Again

sashybo

Hi db, your brother must have loved that, those walls sound amazing. 😁 Something to think about once we have the furniture in and can see where there might be space. 🤔 

🤣 I haven't seen the chuckle brothers for years, DS might well enjoy it actually. My mum put Brum on youtube for him and he really enjoyed it, my brother used to watch it all the time when he was wee. 😂 His other obsession was The Lion King, don't know how many times we all sat through that film and he still cries every time Mustafa dies (he's 28 this year 🤣). To be fair I think everyone cries at that part.

I have looked out the glow in the dark stars and moon stickers that I bought for DS's new room and hopefully will be able to get them onto the ceiling tomorrow. My neck is not looking forward to that. 😱 

DH had to take a trip to the council tip earlier with all the cardboard and paper recycling we have as our paper recycling bin is overflowing (only gets emptied once every 4 weeks now 😠). Of course, the guy at the tip just says to put it in with the general waste as they don't have a paper recycling skip. 🤷‍♀️ Actual !!!!!!, why do we bother separating it all at home then?? 🤔 I hate our council, they are beyond incompetent.

Anyway DH is back to work on Monday after being off for 3 weeks so he's not looking forward to it. He wasn't actually meant to be back until Wednesday but is holiday relief so his rest days have been changed. Grr. He made appointments for Monday & Tuesday with a BT engineer for our rubbish internet connection and someone from the council coming to inspect our conversion to basically tick a box. So I've got to deal with it instead with the kids playing merry hell in the background no doubt. 🤷‍♀️ 😭 Lucky me!

Hoping to make broccoli and Stilton soup tomorrow for dinner as have some ends of Stilton to use up and they're too strong to just eat now. Need to put a loaf in the breadmaker as well, will probably make the olive loaf I did last time with soup. I also have bananas to use up so banana bread will probably be made at some point soon, it freezes well so I could make two and freeze one. 

I really need to go through the freezer and see what can be used up for dinners. I think a few things have been hanging around longer than they should have. 😳 I need to meal plan but just don't have the mental energy.

sashybo

DH has annoyed me today by acting all huffy when I asked him to take DS out to the shops with him. DS hasn't been out for a few days and loves going out in the car so I asked DH to take him when he went out. I got all the sighing and huffing and "But he'll be a nightmare in the shop". 🙄 I just told him to put his reins on and he'd be fine, he's usually good in the trolley anyway.

DS did NOT help my case by having a screaming fit whilst DH put his car seat back in the car because he thought his daddy was leaving without him. 🤦‍♀️ He kept trying to get out of the front door so no doubt most of my neighbours were treated to listening to him screaming and me shouting, DD joining in the crying just because and DH tutting to himself about us all whilst he fitted the car seat. 🙄 🤣 

DH then demonstrated his *excellent* listening skills (not) by telling me that he had discovered how to recline the car seat and it made it much easier to put in. Yes, I know, I told him about it months ago. 😖 

So DD and I are now chilling out at home whilst DH and DS are out at the shops. We'll see how DS behaves for his daddy but he's usually pretty good one on one.

Have done sod all so far today apart from have a shower as DD was up several times in the night. 😭 

sashybo

Well DS was as good as gold for his daddy at the shops and DH was delighted with him. 🙄 🤣 DH said two older ladies stopped him to tell him how lovely DS was and that he should be a child model. 😊 DS has always been a ladies man from about 3 months old. 🤣 

Yesterday afternoon I managed to move DS's clothes from the drawers in his old room to the drawers in his new room and put DD's clothes in the previous drawers. This also gave me the chance to go through their clothes and bag up anything too small for the charity bag. I also went through some bags of DS's old clothes and kept the unisex stuff and put the very obviously "boyish" stuff into the charity bag as well.

I now have 4(!!!) bags of stuff (ok one was my stuff rather than the kids') to put out for the charity collection tomorrow, will get DH to do it on his way out to work as don't want to leave them out overnight in the rain.

DH built DS's new bed and some stacking toy boxes for the living room so I managed to move one big toy box upstairs into DS's new room and rearranged the stuff downstairs. We now have 2 sets of 3 stacking toy boxes and 2 medium clear storage boxes of toys plus the ball pit in our living room. 2 of the stacking boxes and 1 of the clear boxes have DD's toys/DS's baby toys and the rest is DS's stuff.

Reading that back my living room doesn't sound any better to be honest. 🤔 🤣 Wish I could move the ball pit but DS still loves it and DD will get a lot of use out of it once she's able to sit up so it has to stay for now. The living room actually does look a lot better, mind you I haven't mentioned the jumperoo/doll's buggy and DD's seat also cluttering the place up. 🤷‍♀️ 😂 

Made the broccoli and stilton soup for dinner, DS unsurprisingly didn't like it, thought it might be too strong for him but at least he tried it. It used up the odd ends of Stilton that were too strong to eat so that was good.

Today wasn't bad as we managed to get the glow in the dark stars and moon on DS's ceiling in the new room and DH put the Velcro blackout blind up. Just waiting on the roller blind arriving so we can put that up. I want to wait until all of the furniture is in before putting the wall stickers up as don't want to put them down too low as DS will rip them off.

Hoping to move DS into his big boy bed on Wednesday night, fingers crossed it'll be ready and that DS likes it and settles ok in a new room. 🤞 

I also moved the plastic drawer unit into my bathroom as DD's clothes are in proper drawers now. Have managed to get most of the toiletries in there and it looks a lot neater and it's easier to see what I have now too. 👏 

beanielou

You have been very productive 😃

DancingInTheRain

Sounds like you're making great progress & I'm with you on the amount of space the larger toys take up, I keep telling myself that it's only for a few years but must admit to being ruthless in selling/charity shopping things as soon as DS2 is too big for them. I will get my living room back one day!   

sashybo

Thanks Beanie and Dancing. 🍻 

My living room looks a bit like a crèche at times Dancing. 🤣 The BT engineer just about managed to squeeze in today between the rocking chair and DS's bookcase to work on the router/phone line. 😂 DS was being a total stalker and watching and smiling at the guy the whole time too. 🤣 

DD is still waking every 4 hours through the night, I'm like a zombie 🧟‍♀️. Going to try increasing her bottle from 5 to 6oz and see if that helps. She's pretty good in that she wakes up, gets a nappy change, takes a bottle and goes straight back to sleep most of the time but it's still broken sleep for me. I didn't even hear DH getting up and ready for work this morning, must have been in a deep sleep.

Poor DS is still coughing away so I was up with him as well around 3am just after getting DD back to sleep. Then up again at 6am with DD, then up about half 8 for the day but managed to get a quick shower as both kids were awake but still chilling out in their beds.

Need to be up and organised for the council visit tomorrow at 10am. Hopefully it will be a quick in and out for them to look at the converted garage and tick a box.

DH's car was making a funny noise when he got home tonight so he took it to the garage and the mechanic is going to look at it tomorrow. He thinks one of the springs has gone, fingers crossed it won't be too pricey. This means that DH will have to take my car to work so no chance of going anywhere for me tomorrow. If it's dry I can get DS out into the garden or the mud bog that used to be my garden.

Little to no housework done today apart from washing some dishes/bottles and switching on the DW. Need to hoover tomorrow and put at least one washing on. I did an online shop to be delivered on Wednesday, already need to add a few things I'd forgotten.

Will need to shop around for the expensive nappies for DS as just opened my last packet. Always try to buy them on offer as the price is just shocking - I refuse to pay £8 for one pack of pull ups!! 😱

Going to look at starting potty training DS in the next couple of months as he's getting more interested in the toilet etc. Yesterday he managed to pull his nappy down and pee all over himself. 🤦‍♀️ I think it was accidental rather than anything else though and he's still too young to answer me when I ask him if he meant to do it or not.

sashybo

DH's car cost £100 to repair all in, so it could have been a lot worse. Still could have done without it though, our car fund has been wiped out replacing tyres. 😔 

DS has settled into his bed and his new room brilliantly, he loves it and has been so good. We were a bit worried that he would be scared in a new room but he's coped really well. I was up with DD at 4am today (so DS's second night in his new room and bed) and heard him giggling away, he was lying in his bed playing with his cuddly toys and then went back to sleep whilst I was feeding DD. 😊 

We went to the big Swedish store on Wednesday for some meatballs and a couple of things we needed (like the blow up support cushion for DD to sit in the highchair as the cats had punctured the previous one we used with DS 😠 ). DS was great in the cafe, sat nicely at the table and ate all his meatballs etc.

The trouble started in the actual shop. 😱 He was ok whilst we were in the children's bit but when we went downstairs he just kept stopping and dropping. 😱 🤣 He was just lying on the floor refusing to move whilst I pulled on the reins. 🤦‍♀️ DH just kept disappearing with DD in the pram, he definitely got the better end of the deal! I just had to laugh because otherwise I would have just had to lie down beside DS on the floor. 🤣 Most people were just laughing at DS so it was pretty funny as well as being incredibly frustrating!

I was exhausted by the time we escaped and we were only in the actual shopping bit for about half an hour - it felt much, much longer! DS fell asleep in the car on the way home!

I managed to find the packets of 48 of the expensive nappies for £10 the other day, so got two. Should keep DS sorted for quite a while. 👍 

Went to see my mum yesterday for a while, her internet is down (line fault apparently) and she was told 3-5 days before an engineer can come out. 😱 So DS wasn't able to watch tv and was a bit bewildered. 😆 She came to Mr M's with me and then back to our house for dinner. We might be going to my aunt's on Monday with the kids to see my cousin's twins again as DS got on so well with them last time. If my mum could drive I think she'd take them herself but needs me to be the chauffeur. She did say I could drop them off and then go back for them if I wanted to go into town or anything so I might do that.

Have ordered some curtains and a curtain pole for DS's room, hopefully they will all fit ok. We only have one pair of curtains in the whole house, the rest is just blinds so I'm a bit rubbish with curtain sizes etc.

VelvetFreak

Sorry DS is still giving you trouble. I can't help it and will laugh at naughty children out in public but I'm sure it's very frustrating for you. Give him to DH next time

sashybo

To be honest it was quite funny Velvet and I do laugh at kids doing the same when they're not mine. 👀 🤣 DH is most definitely in charge of DS next time! I realised when I got to the end of the shop that I should have stuck him in a trolley but didn't think he would be doing so much rolling around on the floor. 😂  I know better now. 

We got paid yesterday and went straight back into the O/D. 😱 And the next mortgage payment will come out again before we get paid. 😭 I hate 4 weekly pay vs monthly bills.

 We obviously didn't take enough out on the 0% cash transfer so have had to take more. Feeling a bit gutted as our money management seems to have flown out of the window somehow - all of our savings accounts for cats, kids' everyday expenses, cars, birthdays etc have all been wiped out as well. 😔  So, anyway our debt total has gone up again so we'll have to wait until the cash transfers have been paid off before we even think about new flooring or couches in the living room.

DH and I had a talk and worked out a better budget and now have a better idea of what we can spend without going into the O/D. We don't want to be caught out by the new charges and want to stay out of it now as we've taken on more debt to clear it. It's 0% for 18 months so we'll be able to clear it by then. We probably won't be able to pay much more than the minimum until I'm back at work but DH still has some things to sell and I'll keep going with the surveys. My EF will have to be put on hold, hoping I won't need to use it to repay debt but at least it's there if really necessary.

Managed to do the big cat litter clean out yesterday, got a washing done and dried and hoovered in the living room.

Made a cheese and onion quiche for dinner last night with baked potatoes and beans. I properly cheated by buying ready rolled shortcrust pastry but it saved me a bit of time so it was worth it.  My homemade shortcrust pastry is not very good to say the least. The quiche filling was made up of 3 eggs and cream cheese so a bit of a different recipe and less eggs than a few quiche recipes I've used before. Just had to grate cheese and fry some onions to add to it as well and that was it. 

DH & DS enjoyed it so I'll make it again but will tweak it a bit, will probably add more onion and maybe add some peppers as well. We have one slice left over so I'll split that between DS and I as part of our lunch today.

Going to make sweet and sour chicken for dinner tonight, have coconut rice already made up in the freezer so will defrost that to go with it. Tomorrow will either be slow cooker chilli or using up some things from the freezer. If DH is late shift (think he is) then might leave the chilli until later in the week and go for something easy from the freezer.

I'm going to try my best to do rough meal plans as we're definitely spending too much on food and have the dreaded "what do you want for dinner" discussion/argument most nights when DH is working early/day shifts. 😔 It's getting a bit easier for me to do a bit of cooking as DD can sit in her bouncy chair or the high chair for a while or lie on her playmat. DS is usually happy to play about or watch a bit of tv but I just have to check on him to make sure he's not up to anything or "cuddling" DD when she's on the playmat. His "cuddles" usually involve him climbing on top of her and squashing her. 😱  She usually lets me know he's doing something he shouldn't anyway by squawking loudly though. 😂  

Today I'm hoping to hoover upstairs, put a washing away and put another on and maybe clean the bathrooms. Have done none of this so far, have only got the kids up, dressed and fed and washed some dishes. I have some sweet pea seedlings that I need to move into pots too.

I have recently got back onto the secret posting panel after 5 years (moved house and they kept saying that my new postcode didn't exist 🤷‍♀️)  so have had 2 books each of 1st class and large letter stamps now. 👏 It's something I can do quite easily and stamps are so expensive now so I'm glad I got back on.

beanielou

Good news on the secret panel. 

You will find the vouchers useful too when you do the other bits & bobs. 😊