Welcome to the madhouse!!!

Wonder if she still will be after an 8 hour drive with the dog in the (new) car !!!

Looking very demure :

Until she hit a very acidic bit !!!

(What WAS that an advert for anyway ?!! )

Keep trying to find new ways of getting the girls to drink during the heatwave so thought I'd test out Juliette with a straw ...

She took to it like a duck to water so that'll make summer days out a bit easier ! Although ... she hasn't quite understood the bit about not squeezing the carton yet (but neither has her grandad so there's hope for her yet !!!)

Yummm, out the way mum, give that here !

Sophie wanted to do some "messy play" yesterday so we dragged out the crafts books for inspiration and the box of empty toilet rolls and stuff.

Here's the book version :

And out version !!! :

*sigh* I should have been an infants school teacher, my talents are wasted !!!

How come she looks cool as a cucumber and I just look hot and sweaty ?!!

I was starting to worry I wouldn't get the Strawberry Shortcake vest-top finished while the sun was still out but I managed to finish it off this morning. Sophie's already got the next order in for a Dora the Explorer one (again ! )

Juliette's starting to join in now !!!

Dunkirk was the hottest place in France last week and broke the highest temperature here ever, so that meant lots of ice creams, ice poles and splashing about under the parasol.

Just to warn you, I'm answering back to some of the comments you make now !!! So you can always answer to the answers, I get a notification email every time someone replies to a post, however old it is !

It all looks quite sane, calm and quiet in photos !!!

Now Emily won't know what to do first - download the photos or watch it all on the camcorder !!!

The red Scenic is being traded in for a grey Scenic next Wednesday. (The choice was black, dark grey or light grey ... I felt like saying "Is this a cheese shop ?!!" ) So much for that loan being paid off, we've signed up for another five years now ! No comment !

Vicky

No, the pictures aren't rude, they're teddy legs !

Chilled-out rabbit !

We went to the Cité Europe shopping centre yesterday and bought new shoes for me, Sophie and Juliette and the price seemed to go up more and more the smaller and smaller they got !

Anyway, on the way, we passed the shuttle, full of lorries about to go through the tunnel, so I said to Sophie, "Look, that's the train Nanny, Grandad and Emily will be coming on on Sunday". She went quiet for a minute then said "Can they breathe when they're under the sea?". When she'd been reassured about that one she said, "Can they drink the water?" !!! We'll have to take her on it one day so she can get her head around it ! (It probably didn't help with the stories of bringing over a salmon !!!)

Our day trip to Plopsaland ...

Back seat driving on the safari ride

Soon got the hang of the dodgems, after nearly running over the attendant !

Starting to feel tired, but an ice cream sorted her out!

Got a photo of her on here last year with a bandaged-up hand !

I don't remember the bumpy slide at the old town going this fast !

My dad thinks he's a hamster

Alright ducky ?!

Feeling quackers

Revving up for a hectic weekend ... we're off to Plopsaland tomorrow - a theme park dedicated to Plop !!!

http://members.fortunecity.com/plopsa/

Plop is a Belgian cartoon character, what were you expecting ?!!!

And Sunday will be freebie day so I'm busy making space in the ebay cupboard ... and stuff is selling faster than I can list it on ebay !!!

I must be mad because I told Sophie and Juliette we'd do fingerpainting and maybe even foot painting after their nap!!! Send me the men in white coats, quick !!!

Juliette was off her food for a couple of days, which coincided with her cough, so I thought she was feeling under the weather. But then I realised, her rebellious nature has kicked in and she doesn't want anything that resembles baby food any more, it has to be the same as whatever we're eating !!!

So yesterday she discovered cereal (she likes the sugar puff ones Sophie doesn't like, which is handy !)

(Yes, that is cookie crisp so you'd better hide the packet when we come over, Emily !!!)

She tucked away vast quantities of carrots, green beans, sweetcorn, peas and beefburger, going "oooooh" and "hmmmmm" !!!

And today was pasta, ham and cheese.

It obviously tastes so much better when it's not chopped up small any more !!!

Any ideas what I can do with a cupboard full of baby food ?!!

Mike's always coming home from work and complaining that the place looks like a "crèche" (= pigsty), well ... yesterday he was right. I decided to get all the "grown-up" toys like books, puzzles, big lego and pull-along toys down for Juliette so it looked just like a crèche !!!

Why play with toys when you can sit in the box ...

or play with a piece of paper and an empty video box ?!!

To be fair, they did play with the toys afterwards but the batteries ran out in the camera !!!

Why should big sisters have the monopoly on dressing up as princesses ?!!

Vicky took a trip to the grooming parlour today and in this heat, she must feel a lot better now. You've seen changing rooms, now meet changing dog !!!

AFTER

And look at what they cut off - it's a fleece ! I wonder if we could make it into a rug !!!

I made Sophie laugh by draping it over the dogs back - a dog in sheep's clothing ?!

Well today ended up being a baking hot day and a baking day too. We started off at a boot sale and one of Mike's colleagues was there and ended up giving Sophie loads of stuff - a make-up/hairdressing doll's head, a little drawing easel, a backpack full of little Kinder-type toys, a magic wand, some Noddy cards. Plus the Barbie car, Barbie noisy book and activity book she'd already bought, we came back with our arms full. One person didn't have quite such a good time as we passed his car which had rolled down into the 5-foot-deep ditch at the side of the road !!!

As it was so hot, I went to the market to pick up some tomatoes to make a salad for luch. My friendly market-trader, who knows me too well, said he had some peaches right on their time - he'd sort them all out for €5 (just over 3 quid) so I said ok and he got me three trays full !!! I had to do two trips home to carry them all ! So the rest of the day (literally the whole afternoon - after plonking Sophie in the paddling pool under the parasol) was spent in the kitchen chopping out all the mouldy bits and using them up. Result of the afternoon's work - one peach cobbler, one peach and cherry crumble, one jug of peachade (why do you get memonade, orangeade, cherryade but not peachade ?! I'll let you know after we drink it tomorrow !!!), a big bowl of peach puree for Juliette, two freezer bags of chopped up peach and a big fruit salad. After that, if we never see another peach for the rest of the summer, I don't suppose we'll care !!!

School's out for the summer on Tuesday night so Friday was the end of term drink and meal - I don't normally go but I thought it'd be an escape from the football (Mike yells at the telly so much the dog sneaks upstairs to hide !!!) so I went along but was expecting to be tucked up in bed by 10.30pm. Well, I finally made it home at 2am !!! It was a real laugh and hopefully will be the first of many - after the drink at school (leaving speeches and presents for new babies, etc), we headed off to one girl's house for a beer, then a meal in a Mexican restaurant (complete with lethal cocktails, compulsory sombreros and discussions about the headmaster's supposed exploits in the bedroom !!!). Then when all the reasonable people went home, some of us headed down to the port for the summer concerts/late-night pubs. We were all walking around in Tshirts at 2am !

I realised it was the first time I've gone out on my own and left Mike babysitting the girls ... so I did it again the next night and took advantage of the late night sales ! Came home at 9pm just in time for the France match to start (the shops shut earlier than planned because of the match!) At the end, you could hear people shouting and cars beeping and revellers setting off bangers all over the place and it even woke Sophie up so Mike took her in her nightdress out to the corner to see all the cars with flags and people cheering going past. What are they going to be like if they actually win ?!!!

I've been cutting chunks of matted fur off Vicky for the past few weeks but have decided I'm fighting a losing battle and took her to the "toiletteur" (grooming parlour) to get an appointment. She was leaping all over the woman licking her like she was some long lost friend !!! So as from Thursday, she's getting sheared ! It'll do her good in this heat, because her fur is really thick and is so knotty, the woman said it acts like a shell and keeps all the heat in. Only bad thing is, she said that there might be eczema underneath because the dogs sweat so much so it might look a bit of a mess ! We had an interesting chat though - she says Vicky still thinks she's a baby (re - the enthusiastic welcome) so it shouldn't be too late for housetraining her. The "accidents" in Juliette's room are because she's jealouse of another baby and just wants lots of attention. She said you absolutely must not tell her off when she does something inside but take her out for walks at regular intervals and give her a treat every time she does one - it's worth a try ! And she has only done one inside since yesterday so it could be working. I'll give you some before and after shots on Thursday (when I'll be on holiday and won't have anything better to do with my time !!!)