birthdays, babies, busy days

Well the past few weeks have been quite fun and busy! I guess the biggest news is that my beautiful new nephew was born in the early hours of Friday morning, the day after my son's 5th birthday. My new nephew, Ethan, is absolutely beautiful and I'm in love with him already!! His mum had a relatively short labour for a first baby and is doing so well. Ethan is just the cutest little thing and I LOVE to have a cuddle with him when I can! Aren't babies so wonderful and bring such wonderful happy, peaceful feelings with them (amid the crying!). I'm so excited to be part of Ethan's life and we are so blessed to have him in our extended family! And I love his parents too :)

As mentioned above, Zach had his 5th birthday this week. My baby is 5! How did that happen :) He's still my cheeky monkey though. On Monday, after school, I took him and his best friend Sammy to the park where we met some other friends (Amos and Joe and their mum). Sammy was going on holiday on Tuesday morning so we had Zach's little birthday celebration on Monday so Sammy could be there. It wasn't his actual birthday until Thursday. Some other friends weren't able to attend so there were just 4 little boys. We played in the park's playground for an hour or so, then we took them to McDonalds for a happy meal. I took some power rangers cupcakes so after the happy meal we sang 'happy birthday' and ate a cupcake. The boys had a lovely time :) Even though it was just a simple 'play in the park and dinner at McD's' party instead of a big full-on party.

Nathaniel was off school at the beginning of the week with suspected conjunctivitis, but I think it was just allergies that affected his eyes. I really enjoyed spending one-on-one time with him. We took a trip to B&Q to buy some magnetic blackboard paint to use on a cupboard door in their bedroom but they didn't have any in. I wanted to paint the door so they can chalk on it and put fridge magnets on to hold up any work they want to display. I'll have to go another time when they get it back in stock. We then went to another store and bought a little flat-pack greenhouse. It's just a cheap little thing that you put together and it has a plastic cover that goes over it. We bought seed trays and lots of packets of seeds to grow. Mostly veggies such as broccoli, radishes, cabbages, etc, but also a few flower seeds. It was a really warm afternoon so we sat in the back garden with Nathaniel working away, putting compost in the trays and planting the seeds. He was really proud of his work. So imagine my sadness and disappointment when yesterday the wind was really strong and blew the greenhouse over, spilling the seeds and compost everywhere! When I went to survey the damage I saw that some of the seeds had started to grow and they were scattered all over! I scooped up the compost and put it back into the trays but I'm not sure whether they are all ruined or not. I feel really sad for Nathaniel that this has happened!! I'm hoping at least a few of the seeds may still grow. Oh well. At least we tried!!

The kids now have 2 weeks off school. I really enjoy them being at home! They have a party to attend later today, but no other plans for the rest of the week. Which is great as we can just take it as it comes and do whatever takes our fancy!! I just wish this weather would improve. It's still very windy, but sunny too. At least my washing should dry out on the line!