Never work with children or animals...

or your photos may turn out like this!

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This is why I never attempt a proper photo shoot with my boys! All we wanted was one nice photo to include with our Christmas cards. Instead we got

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and this

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and my personal favourite in which you would think Auntie Lesley was holding a stick of dynamite in front of Conor and not a cute Rudolph toy!

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Out of about 30 shots the only 2 good ones are these ones..

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I'm thinking I might run with one of the funny ones - altogether more representative of life with the Boyds!

Why is it...

that whenever I become sick, so does at least one of the boys and Michael is on night shift? A question I had plenty of time to ponder in the small hours of Friday and Saturday night as I snuffled my way into Conor's room to change yet another nappy, vest, babygro, sheet and blankets (the joys of the tummy bug).

Obviously I am still waiting for my new modem, although I am assured it will be here before the weekend, hurrah! So once again I am at my sister's uploading photos from my last few sessions and generally getting my online fix. And as a special treat I can post a few photos for you:) These are from various sessions over the past few weeks. All a joy to photograph, and a couple of parents were indeed in shock that their little darling(s) didn't play up for the camera and seemed to have quite a lot of fun too! All good for me and my budding career (although now that we're all sale agreed and moving in Feb I doubt that I'll be giving up teaching any time soon!)

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It's getting beyond a joke!

I confess, I've deliberately been avoiding posting on my blog for the past couple of weeks because I knew all I would do would be moan about my lack of internet connection. But I've held off long enough and now I really want to moan about lack of said internet connection! Allegedly we'll be up and running in a week or so, but I don't believe anyone anymore! Until I see it with my own eyes the very idea is up there with the miracles!

Anyway, how has everyone been? Obviously I know Sheila is barely talking to me because of my poor show in the blogging world! She is probably about to strike me off her Christmas card list! And the lovely Ann(i)e has been sending me positive vibes to help with the stress - thank you :) The rest of you I have no idea about. Bizzarely, last night I met a friend of a friend who said she recognised me straight away from my blog! I nearly died laughing :D Could it be that there are people out there reading my ramblings and not stopping off at the comments section to say hi? If that's you, just click on the comments line at the bottom of this post and leave me a wee hello. Really, it will totally make my day! I'm that sad!

So anyway, we had fun in York with Rosie and Gareth. Love those two. It's just the nicest place to be - in a friend's house in a cool city, shopping, chilling out (as best you can with 2 tinies in tow!) an drinking fine wine. Such a great weekend. The boys were absolute angels to fly with. Patrick was so excited about the airport and the aeroplane. He wanted to hold my hand tightly when we were sitting on the runway, but when the plane speeded up for take off he said "I don't need you to hold my hand anymore." Now what's a mummy to do with a phrase like that? Cry? Wonder what purpose you have left in life? Or accept that at 3 1/2 your little man is already gaining independence and doesn't actually need you for everything anymore? Obviously until he wants another Percy Pig, which you have stashed in your bag, at which point you become the most needed commodity in his little life again!

We went to the National Railway Museum while we were in York - another totally exciting day. And again I was amazed by how brilliant something like trains, which ordinarily bore me to tears, can be when accompanied by the tiny one. Very cool indeed.

I really don't want to bore you to tears with the whole trip. Suffice to say we had fun and Fat Face cleaned my current account out! But I decided it was worth it for some quality items that make me feel good and which are even in my pre-pregnancy size! (Fat Face obviously do not use the same size guides as Top Shop!) So hurrah for all that.

Amongst other news, we have our house up for sale (don't even ask), I'm very busy with photographs, I have lost my gorgeous Pilgrim earrings and necklace, and I think my marbles in general are on their way to being lost! It's all slightly crazy, but seriously, it's all good :)

Grrrrr!!

Still not connected:( Still sneaking on during school - I'm sure no one really notices. It just looks like I'm working very hard on the computer he he!! So missing my daily reading of blogs and I'm beginning to feel like the world of scrapping will have totally changed in my absence!

We're off to visit friends in York tomorrow and they have wireless broadband. This trip will be heaven in so many different ways! Watch out Fat Face - there's birthday money to be spent!! Hope to log in a bit while we're there, and please send lots of positive thoughts to my computer for a speedy recovery :)

What's a girl to do...?

So our computer died a few days ago. Well, it's not actually ill, but it's in dire need of a quadruple bypass or something else! Bottom line - it's not working! And it feels like I've had an arm cut off. Clearly I spend way too much time on here and am therefore at a bit of a loss as to what to do with myself without it! Michael is convinced I'm having withdrawal symptoms, although, how he's managed to cope without logging on to Property News for 2 days I don't know!

In the interim, I have almost completed a mini book for a friend. I would show pictures but my sister doesn't have a card reader on her printer, so that pretty much means no photos either, boooo! And I can't show you the very cute pictures of Patrick with his pumpkin, or all our little chums at Sheila's Hallowe'en party today. When I'm finally up and running again you'll be bored rigid with photos for a few days.

And that's that. I'm off to check the weather forecast before my Ikea trip with Lesley tomorrow. If the boat is cancelled because of this wind there will be two v unhappy girls with Ikea catalogues and nowhere to go! Here's hoping...!

Pox alert!

Tiny has the dreaded pox. Very poor show indeed. And downright rude of the first offender in Patrick's nursery to feel the need to spread the pain! Patrick had such a mild dose of it that I thought we would hardly notice when Conor got it. WRONG!! It's everywhere. Poor wee munchkin :0( He not happy. It's even in all his wee baby chub creases and covers his scalp. Needless to say mum and dad not happy either, especially as sleep (at night time) is once again a dim and distant memory. Oh well, at least it's done and dusted before they both start school. But I am not happy with my half term being scuppered. All my plans to do fun stuff - such as posting on here and browsing websites that others post on their blogs!- will once again take a back seat to my littl'uns! I see a pattern emerging here! Might there be a lesson to leart about priorites??!! Anyway, he won't thank me for it in years to come, but I think he needs all the sympathy he can get right now, so here's the little pox-ridden lad. Let me hear you all say "Aawwww!"

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Life is nicer because...

I'm off for half term. HURRAH!! Lots more time to play with scrapbook goodies, post on my blog and do lovely things with my boys for a whole 11 days.

I have beautiful things to look at and use on a daily basis. As seen below we have

- the bargain £10.80 piece of Laura Ashley blue and white spot pvc for my kitchen table;

- the totally fantastic door stop Jo made for my birthday (way too talented to be at home all day!) and the beautiful Cath Kidston shopper that came with it:) I've always wanted one of those babies, if for no other reason than to hang somewhere I can see it everyday.

- this totally funky bowl that my friend Jen bought me for my birthday. Doesn't it look like it's begging to be filled with actual Dolly Mixtures?

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I'm also loving the black grapes that Tesco have in store at the moment. Patrick and I have been known to eat through a whole bowl of them in one sitting.

...sometimes God just gives you a reminder of how amazing the world is. This was my view as I made breakfast yesterday. Totally put me in a good mood and made going to school a whole lot easier.

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...I found a new issue of Real Simple magazine in Eason yesterday. It would have been wrong to just leave it on the shelf!

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How cool is this? (Admittedly it may only be cool to other like-minded control freaks who love nothing more than a good article about how to organise a room in your house!) This magazine just speaks my language! It's all about storage, organisation and cool time saving ideas. Plus they have the most amazing pages that are just begging to be used as ideas for a scrapbook page! And they have a website that will e-mail me storage and organisation tips! Truly a wonder:) Incidentally, Michael doesn't seem to 'get' it!

...the latest Cath Kidston catalogue. Mmmm! Just looking at the products makes me happy. I'm very easily pleased this weather!

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...my promotional cards have arrived! How amazing do these look? They were done by a local company called Three Creative Design and were a total bargain. Now all I need to do is get them out there and wait for the phone calls and e-mails! Here's hoping...

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3 girls and a lot of stash!

Pretty much sums up last night. My 2 scrapping chums, Jo and Sheila came round for a night of scrapbooking, giggling and chocolate cheesecake! Absolutely marvellous!! It was so cool to have other people to talk to about BasicGrey and the virtues of all things Making Memories, and who were just as giddy and over-enthusiastic as I generally am! We took pics of ourselves and then all set to creating a page about our 1st ever crop. This is mine - a package came from 2peas just in time full of that lovely My Mind's Eye front porch range.

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And the lovely Jo was playing with some gorgeous Gypsy bits and pieces from aforementioned BasicGrey. How cool is her page?

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And you can see the fab Sheila's page here. Go check it out too. Love these girls and can't wait to do this again:)