Welcome to the madhouse!!!

Sophie had me in hysterics earlier ...

"Mummy, why has she got a lump of cheese on her head ?" !!!

Look, no more bogey noses ! Their colds have gone now - I'm the only one still sniffling and coughing, but they always say good teachers always wait for the school holidays to get sick !

Oh well, you can't always get two smiley faces at the same time !

Juliette's new shoes. Sophie got new purple boots too.

Not really the season for ice creams but they seemed to go down well !

Someone keeps parking this car opposite our house and every time without fail, Sophie gets all excited ! Oh well, only another week to wait now !

Sophie wanted to show you the Halloween decorations we put up.

And here she is with the false nails kit she won which I said she could use to dress up for trick or treating - depending on the weather, we might give it a go this year !

I've got Juliette started on the colouring competitions now too. Unfortunately she gets more felt tip on her face and hands than on the paper and she eats the wax crayons ! She loves putting all the lids back on the felt tips though so she makes a great team with Sophie !!!

When Juliette wants a tantrum, she goes and lays on the naughty step !!!

They still play together nicely, but they have the odd fight now because Juliette's not as easy-going as she used to be and knows what she wants and doesn't want already !!!

Princess Snotface !!!

Aaagggh more bogeynoses, I spent all day running after her wiping her nose !!!

That's not a runny nose, it's a waterfall !

Juliette does the Balamory mat too now !

Sophie's been having quite a few nightmares lately, for some reason (nothing too bad but enough for her to wake me up at 2am on a couple of occassions), so I had a brainwave, dragged her off to the local discount store where I'd noticed a pile of dreamcatchers for €1,50 each and bought one to stick above her bed (and she made me buy one for above my bed and Juju's bed too !) It's magic - she hasn't had a bad dream since !!! The power of persuasion !

If you have no idea what a dreamcatcher is, this will give you an idea (but the ones I bought are about as Indian as the chicken curry I made last week !)

http://www.navajoworld.com/dreamcatchers/

The Dream Catcher legend........

Many years ago, grandmother found a spider in her home. It was building a web above her bed, and she spent many days watching it work and marveled at its beauty. One day, as the web was nearing completion, her grandson came to visit and he saw the spider and immediately went to kill it. Grandmother stopped him, and said that the spider had been there for several days, working hard on the web. It had not bothered her, and she had enjoyed watching it. The spider thanked Grandmother for saving its life and told her that in return for her kindness, it would give her a gift. The spider said that the web above her bed would make sure she only had good dreams - the bad dreams would get caught in the web, and would burn up when the sun rose. Only the good and important dreams would pass through this dreamcatcher.

Well, while we were out at work today, the sweep came and unblocked our chimney. Do you really want to know what was blocking it?! A dead pigeon !!! So me with my maggot phobia, every time we were peering up the blocked pipe, I could have got an eyeful of maggots !!!! Anyway, we can now see daylight out of the chimney so it looks all ok - we just need to get the SANICAP boiler bloke back to put back on the security mechanism and then I think we should be ok for turning on the boiler and getting some heating.

After Juliette falling out of her bed last week (can't remember if I told you that already or not - don't panic, she didn't hurt herself ! ), this weekend I got Mike to put the bars on the bed down to the lowest level and ended up having a big change-around. She now has a play area in the corner of her room, much to her and Sophie's delight !

It looks so much bigger now - this is just the space that was taken up with the rocking chair !

Reading corner

Shhhh don't tell her the book's upside down, she'll feel silly !!!

"Lean over a bit Sophie. No, not you too Juju !"

Aahhh smile !!!

See ? She's not always as angelic as she looks !!!

Sorry about the bogey-noses, they've both got colds after their MMR jabs last week !

There you go Em, get printing !!!

Well, to be fair, it was OK up to Wednesday - had to get both the girls' booster jabs done at the doctor's. He decided the "magic patch" (local anaesthetic patch) wasn't up high enough so pulled the skin up to do the jab, which meant it hurt as soon as he let go of the skin. Shame because Sophie has gone from being totally cool about injections to not being at all keen - good news is, no more for either of them until next year now - phew !!

Thursday morning, Mike was in the shower and suddenly no more hot water. Didn't have time to do anything about it before rushing off to work, same thing at dinnertime, ventured down to the garage - the hot water "gas accumulator" thing we just had installed has stopped working. And the overflow bucket was overflowing itself. Back on the phone to Sanicap, they sent someone round that night.

Got the original bloke from last year (I trust him more than the one we had this time !), he said that there's too much heat in the pipes so it's gone into automatic shutdown as a safety measure. Pulled some copper springy thing off so it overrides the safety measure, hot water back on but ... loads of smoke pouring out of our blocked chimney/pipe. He said what I always thought, but which the last bloke denied - it was carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide pouring out - and said he'd condemn it if it was in the house but as it's separate from the living quarters and in a big well ventilated-area, he'll leave it on for us to have hot water. But we absolutely must leave the boiler off or it'll chuck out four times as much "smoke". So we finally managed to get the name and number of a chimney sweep off him who will come and solve our problem. Then we have to get Sanicap back AGAIN to stick the copper spring-thing back on. Hopefully that will be the end of that one.

Then last night, our toilet decided to start playing up too. The water is constantly running into the bowl so the tank never totally fills up (takes ages to flush toilet or won't flush at all). So I've been online looking for a quick fix this morning and managed to solve it for now - by sinking a pebble-weighted bit of flower-arranging foam (God knows where that came from, it was all I could find when I went looking for a brick in the garage !) in the tank and bending the arm of the floater down a bit. (Wow, I actually sound like I know what I'm talking about here !!!) Only problem is, I've got Shakin Stevens on the brain now because the website I looked at was called 'This Ole House" !!!

I'm getting quite nifty with the old home repairs now - I've done the washing machine and the toilet, maybe I should go out tonight looking for a hedgehog and take on the chimney myself !! Just call me Bobette the Builder !!!

(Oh and guess who will get roped in for looking at the toilet on the next visit over if my quickfix doesn't work !!! Don't forget to bring your ballcocks in your pocket !)

What's for dinner Mum ?

Yippeee chips !!!

Keep your hands off, they're mine !!!

Now when I was at school, this meant something rude (and I can already hear Sheila asking Emily to explain !!!)

And one of Sophie to finish off with so I don't get accused of favouritism !

Sophie looks after Juliette while I run around getting lunch ready (and scares me to death yelling "look Mum, what Juju can do" !!! )

Note to the smelly dellies - you know where this is now !! But this was a couple of weeks before you came over, I just haven't had a chance to upload the photos yet ! So no, I haven't scalped Juliette again, it's grown back quite a lot now ! ;)

They eat carrot peel ...

grass ...

dandelion leaves ...

leaves off the floor ...

Forget about feeding the goats, feed me instead

Oi, hurry up messing about with those stinky old goats, I want to play !

Look at me mum, wheeeee !

Higher !

And higher !

Hey, look at me too !

Time for a refuel

Finished mine, can I go and play on the swings again ?!

Yummm, hurry up, I want some more of that !

Just give it here, I'll do it myself

I've got bags of energy now

Vroom vroom, watch me go !

Is everybody watching ?

Look at what I do at school

Oops, haven't had a chance to get on here since going back to work basically. What with all the usual back-to-school dramas, I seem to have inherited a particularly dodgy bunch this year. Take your pick between the suicide attempt at school who spent the weekend in hospital, the girl who spent the weekend in police custody for living in a squat with her two brothers and burgling the local houses, the boy who did a runner from the children's home with a mate, tried to intimidate some kids into handing over money and a mobile phone and, when the nearby primary school headmistress stepped in, tried to steal her bag ! It makes the kids yesterday, who made a classmate cry by calling her names and throwing a dead fly in her hair then followed her mother across the playground taking the mickey out of her limp and shouting insults to her face, seem like little angels. And I have to try to find a smart career plan for all this lot at the end of the year. Is there a supernanny for schoolkids somewhere ?!!