memories

My Sunday Snapshot and Ordinary Moments, the Deckchair

June 7, 2020 by Anne Sweet 15 Comments

We have just made the decision to cancel our holiday this year. It is in the UK in August, but with underlying health conditions it’s probably best that we don’t mix with too many people for a while just yet. We were going to Haven, a favourite resort for us for many years and when we go, the kids have to have their photo taken in the huge deckchair.

2013 deckchair photo

Boo and Star in huge deckchair in 2013 — Haven Deckchair, 2013

This is our first deckchair photo taken in 2013 in Prestatyn. The Little Man was around but he didn’t like climbing on the chair. Boo would have been five years old here and Star seven years. The Little Man would have been just two.

Weymouth 2017

Star, Boo and the Little man in the deckchair 2017 — Deckchair 2017

Here are all three of them in the Deckchair in Weymouth in 2017, this is where we were supposed to be going this year. Here, Star is 11 years old, Boo is 9 and the Little Man is 6.

There is a bit of a break because we didn’t go on holiday for a couple of years because just a few months after the 2013 break, Star had her neck problems begin. They lasted two years. We did manage some short breaks between halos but they were not Haven holidays. We also had a Haven holiday in Blackpool in 2016…but no deckchair photo!

Devon 2018

In 2018 we decided to go back to Devon Cliffs, it had been our first Haven holiday destination back in 2010 but the girls were only 4 and 2 yrs old and the Little Man hadn’t been born. I didn’t take a deckchair photo. (I’ve included a non deckchair photo at the end of the post of the girls.)

In this photo the Little Man was 8yrs, Boo was 11 years and Star had her 13th birthday on the day we came home. With all three kids having their birthdays in summer, I really try to avoid holiday birthdays but I messed up this year.

Cornwall Deckchair 2019

And now we are up to our last holiday in 2019. We decided to go all the way to Cornwall, and it wasn’t until we were nearly there that I realised that I’d booked us into the wrong Haven site. It didn’t really matter though. Cornwall is such a beautiful place to visit. It was too steep for me to get on the beach at the site but I had some lovely sea views. And just a short drive away, to the place I thought we were staying, they had beach wheelchairs available.

In this photo, taken in between The Little Man and Star’s birthday, Boo is 12 years old, The Little Man is 9 and Star is still 13 years.

Our First Haven Holiday 2010

This was our first Haven holiday and the reason why we keep returning. We had such a lovely week with our little girls who were then just four and two years old.

I am hoping we can save our holiday deposit for next year. I’m looking forward to going back to Weymouth.

Are you still going on holiday this year?

Facebook Memories

March 11, 2020 by Anne Sweet 2 Comments

Every now and then I like to look through my Facebook memories and copy some of them here. My family have given me so much to smile about over the years and I love the little reminders I get.

Here is my latest collection.

The Book of the Dead

2009 8th march

went to the cemetery today and Star got excited about all the ‘books’ to read

I guess tombstones are pretty exciting to a four year old, especially one that’s just started to learn to read. Some of them do look like books, in fact our family plot has a book for a gravestone, but all the pages are full now. I’ve already decided I want to be scattered beneath a cherry tree, something they’ve started doing at our cemetery.

First Steps

2012 1st march
Today The Little Man walked across the living room, turned around and walked back! Then he walked to the middle of the room and turned around twice!! The grin on his face was amazing (so was the one on mine) I hope this means he’s going to finally gain the confidence to walk properly now. He’s still really unsteady like he might fall at any minute, and he drags his right foot a little, but I’m sure now that he actually knows he can do it he will practice more and get it right. Then I can buy him some new trousers with the knees still intact 🙂

Recording when your child walks for the first time is really special. It was even more special with the Little Man because at this time he was twenty months old. All my other children had walked shortly before or after their first birthday, The Little Man was closer to his second. He didn’t even crawl, the most he managed was a bottom shuffle. He was also slow talking, and the health visitor was beginning to get worried. At two and a half he started a pre-nursery group and suddenly he caught up very quickly with all the other children. He even toilet trained before he was three years old. He is pretty bright now and well on par with his peers. He just has sensory and behaviour issues. It’s hard to believe he had such a slow start in life though.

I don’t have my older children’s first steps recorded on Facebook memories as they are too old 🙁

The Science Experiment

2015
Not sure exactly what Star was doing in science today but she came home smelling like a can of air freshener… I’ve just put her uniform in the wash with graham’s socks!!

Star would have been in year five at school and I never did find out exactly what she had been doing. I guess it’s good she came home smelling better than her Dad’s socks though.

Sister Love

2018
We have a poorly~Star who was sent home from school and took to her bed before dinner. So just before bedtime Boo warmed up Star’s ‘hottie’ in the microwave and made her some toast. She’s the sister I always wanted, what a little sweetheart.

I think this needs no explanation. Boo is such a caring child, who wouldn’t want a sister like her.

Sleepover

2020
Boo, while on her phone texting her best friend. “K said can I go for a sleepover.” Me, ” it depends what day but it should be okay”
Boo, “K said I can go over on Tuesday as there is no school.”
Me ” ok, that will be good” then as an afterthought “has K asked her parents about this?”
Boo “no, she’s going to ask them now.”
2 mins later “k’s parents said no.”
Guess who is coming for a sleepover at our house on Tuesday!

Boo is constantly texting her friend from school. She texts her in the morning before school, and as soon as she gets home she’s texting her again. They really are good friends. They often make plans without asking us though, their parents. I know they are 12 years old, but they still need to ask us about staying out all night. It did make me laugh though, they spent 20 minutes planning Boo’s sleepover at K’s house, without asking K’s parents.

Her friend was unable to come over and stay in the end, but we are making more concrete arrangements for her to come and stay over the Easter Holiday. She’s a lovely girl so it should be fine, so long as Star can deal with someone staying over.

That’s all I have for now but if you enjoyed this you may enjoy some of my other facebook memories posts.

Funny Memories of the Things My Kids Have Said

Kids Say and Do the Funniest Things (My latest Offerings)

Kids and Mums, Say and Do the Funniest Things

Kids Say and Do the Funniest Things

Word of the Week #35 Memories

August 30, 2019 by Anne Sweet 13 Comments

Hello and welcome to the home of Word of the Week, a nice and simple weekly linky, with everyone welcome to pop by and share. The idea of the linky is to reflect back on your past week and share it with us. It’s great if you can sum it up in a word or phrase, hence giving us your Word of the Week. My word this week is memories and you can read more about that below.

I’m not totally strict on using just a word or phrase but please try to stick to the theme of summing up your week.

There are not too many rules with this linky, just remember to read at least another couple of posts in the link up after adding your link. I will read and comment on all posts and tweet them out for you. I also have a Pinterest board devoted to Word of the Week and I will add posts to Mix Please add the badge below to your post so that others may find us and join in. If you comment or tweet then please use the hashtag #WotW

Word of the Week is open from 6am on Friday Morning to 12 noon on Monday. Plenty of time to join in!

If you are unfamiliar with the Word of the Week linky then please feel free to ask any questions. New linkers are always welcome, we love to hear what you have been up to in the past week.

MY WORD OF THE WEEK.

Memories

This week I decided it was time to sort out our bedroom. We broke our wardrobe when moving house six years ago and only use one side of it. The other side is full of boxes and stuff that has barely been moved since we put it there.

So, I ordered a new wardrobe and side table. My first job was to empty my side table. It was rammed with stuff! The top drawer was full of drugs, but don’t worry; they were all prescribed. Some of them were past their use by date though.

As I moved down to the other drawers, I found photographs and notebooks going back ages. I loved the baby books that I’d kept for my three youngest. I also found a lot of crystals and a fair amount of small change.

The Wardrobe

The broken side of the wardrobe is guarded by my daughter’s dog Sasha. The dog is now over 20 years old but she’s still looking good. I remember buying her as a birthday present; she was pretty hard to wrap being the size of a regular sitting labrador. She’s easy to care for, she doesn’t eat, move or bark. My daughter gave her up when we moved and we found she made a good doorstop for the broken wardrobe door. I don’t know what we’ll do with her when the new wardrobe is up.

I moved Sasha out of the way and started to go through some stuff in the wardrobe. Wow! I had drawings and hand prints from all of my five children from when they were little. Such precious memories. I whittled two huge boxes of paper down to one though. I find it difficult to part with things, but I reckon one huge box of memories is enough. Then there were the baby clothes. I don’t know why I kept them? Some were woollen jumpers that my Mum had knitted, so I get that, and the Christening robes. Everything else had to go. Including about 20 different princess dresses. Oh, my aching heart.

Then there were the photographs. Oh so many photographs, going back over 40 years. Oh my, I was such a pretty teenager, why didn’t I see it then? Maybe I’ll scan some later.

Sad Memories

It’s also been a sad time for memories as I lost a dear friend to the dreaded cancer this week. 15 years ago I was searching the internet for someone to talk to about my miscarriage (my one and only.) I came across a forum (Facebook wasn’t a thing then and forums where a good way of making connections.) I came across a group of women who were all of a similar age as me and were all trying to have babies, or had lost babies. We became friends and over the years we laughed and cried together as we all went on our parenting journey. I still know many of these women now (Although we have moved on to Facebook.) I know so many women with children the same age as my girls (not so much my boy as we were all a little bit ‘past it’ by then…well apart from 3 of us!

Maggie was a lovely member of our group and we all will sadly miss her. She is the second member now taken from us by cancer.

Another of our group also lost her partner suddenly last week. So, it’s been a very sad time indeed.

So my memories this week have been cute, heart-warming and very sad. A true mixed bag of emotions.

Now it’s your turn, what word or phrase sums up your week this week.

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Last week my word of the week was washing

Kids say (and do) the Funniest Things

February 18, 2019 by Anne Sweet 21 Comments

This is a purely indulgent post, full of personal memories. But I do hope you find a few things that will make you smile too.

I love the memories you can get on Facebook, when it shows you what you have posted on the same day in the past. I get some real gems showing up so I thought I’d collect some and share them in a post.

Christmas 2009

Star was a little girl of four years old, Boo was two and the Little Man hadn’t yet made his appearance (although I was soon to find out he was on the way.)

One day I was playing with Star and I asked her if she’d like to sing a Christmas song. ‘Yes’ she said, she always loved to sing.

So I asked her what song she’d like to sing, thinking maybe she’d come up with Jingle Bells or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

No, she said. Let’s sing the one about the turkey and the custard cream.

Ah yes, that good old Christmas classic. I’ve never worked out what she meant.

two little girls on Christmas day 2009 — Christmas 2009

2010 One For All

While I was pregnant with the Little Man we braved a holiday with the girls. It was a lovely holiday camp and we had a great time. Boo was around two and a half at the time and one day she was prancing around with a stick saying ‘We are the Biscuit Ears!’ We thought it was hilarious.

Star understood her so we asked her to explain. Of course, she meant musketeer. Barbie and the Musketeers was currently Star’s favourite DVD to watch. We’ve constantly teased Boo about being a biscuit ear.

two little girls standing on a rock at a caravan park in 2010 — The Biscuit Ears

2011 Gems

In 2011 the Little Man was around but he wasn’t talking yet. So I have a couple of gems from the girls.

Just before the Summer holiday break up at school Star’s class all came out with painted faces. They ran out of school like a herd of animals. Then came Star with a clean face. When I asked why she wasn’t painted like the other children she replied, ‘I washed it off Mummy, because I didn’t want to scare you. So sweet! I do think that there is more to this story though as Star became traumatised by face paint since then and will not even go near a child that has had their face painted.

Early 2011 Boo was just three years old. They had both been given a packet of sweets on the way home from shopping. At home Star was looking for her sweets, I asked Boo if she’d seen them. She replied, ‘yes Mummy, I’ve seen them and now they are in my tummy.’ If nothing, she was honest! And how could you be angry when she had such a sweet little face…look this is the face of the innocent..or not!

a little girl standing by a duck pond — The Sweet, sweet thief in 2011

2014 Hair Dye

This one is for the Little Man. In 2014 when he was around three and a half he was at that stage where he followed me everywhere around the house. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom in peace. I’m sure you parents can understand.

One day I grabbed my towel, my hair dye and popped off to the bathroom to die my hair. The Little Man asked ‘What you doing Mummy?’ So I told him I was going to dye my hair.

Five minutes later there is a knock on the bathroom door and the Little Man called out…’Mummy, is your hair dead yet?’

a little boy standing by a fence — The Little Man in 2014

Music

I’m pretty sure when I was a child I listened to ‘normal’ music. At the present I’m in the same room as the girl’s while they are playing on the PS4. They have their own playlist playing and boy do I feel old when some of the ‘tunes’ just give me a headache. But the worst is they love some Youtuber who sings Minecraft parodies. His lyrics are clever, but his voice is just plain awful. So bad that it’s funny at first, but when you’ve heard it more than once you really want to turn it off (or cut your ears off!)

But lets go back to 2016 and the Little Man when he was just five years old. He was playing a little game on the computer and had his own playlist on in the back ground. It was four songs on repeat; We Will Rock You, Levan Polka, It’s Raining Taco’s and Gummy Bears. I think you can understand why all my children now have headphones!

As an extra special treat for you, here is the Levan Polka as performed by the magnificent Hatsune Miku. Spin those leeks!

Back to Normal

January 7, 2019 by Anne Sweet 9 Comments

So Christmas is over for another year, it’s official, the tree is down and decorations banished to the cupboard for another year.

Here’s a query for you…for many years I took my decorations down on January 6th which is the Epiphany. It was what my Mum did and I followed suit. But, then I discovered that most people take their decorations down on 12th night which is January 5th. Despite my Mum teaching me it was incredibly unlucky to take them down before the 6th, I have in the past couple of years taken the opportunity to be rid of Christmas a day earlier, sorry Mum. So, what do you believe is the right time to take down the tree and decorations? Maybe you are like a lot of my friends who like them gone before January?

This Christmas passed peacefully and we had a lot of fun as a family. I think maybe I got stressed out in the run up, not because of the usual things, but because we are renowned to have disastrous Christmas holidays and I was worried it would go wrong again. Our track record includes 3 family deaths, pet deaths, huge fall outs, and calls to the police and ambulance services. Even I didn’t escape as only 3 years ago I ended up in hospital on New Years Day. You know what, we only need a murder to fully compete with an Eastenders Christmas script.

New Year!

Sadly we did begin the New Year on a bad note as my Mother-in-law’s dog passed away during the night on the 4th January. I’m not a huge dog lover but Sasha was such a gentle friendly dog, she will be missed.

a head view of a staffordshire bull terrier dog — In Memory of Sasha

On 7th January I am having my hospital treatment which is much needed. I think I totally wore myself out over the Christmas period. Bad eating, too much alcohol and too many late nights have taken their toll.

The Little Man is back at school on the 7th and the Girl’s go back on the 9th. It will be strange getting back into a routine. But, I’ve found the solution to a lot of my woes. My son bought me a new tumble dryer for my Birthday back at the end of November, and last week I bought myself a new washing machine. Both new machines are 10kg loads and super quick, I can’t believe what a difference it has made to my washing mountain. (my old machines were both 7kg loads) I’m almost looking forward to tackling the school uniforms and p.e. kits again. (almost)

The Blog

I’m migrating my blog this week to a new host so I may disappear for a while. I should be back by Friday for my Word of the Week though. Nothing will change, Raisie Bay will still look the same. (hopefully)

Thanks for reading x