Quick Recap of the Summer Hols

Me and LMS took Little Prince and Princess Lollipop to Legoland. After finding the driving home after a full day at the park so hard last time, we booked two nights in the hotel (same lovely one as last time) and that was so much easier. The 3 1/2 hour drive did take almost 6 hours though (both ways!!) as either Little Prince needed a "comfort stop" or Princess Lollipop got to upset at being stuck in the car seat and we had to stop to comfort her. We had a fantastic time at Legoland and I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone with kids under 12 ish. It turns out that Princess Lollipop LOVES rollercoasters (well the little mini kiddie ones) she grinned and shouted "whee" all the way round :-) Little Prince loved all the rides, the opportunity to build with unlimited Lego bricks and was also fascinated by the display of icons from around the world all made of Lego. One of his favourite things was when he got to get in a giant inflatable ball and propel himself around a small pool with other kids in giant balls!! He jumped and threw himself around like a lunatic (all pretty normal behaviour for him when he's not in a giant ball!!) and didn't get hurt at all - wish I could get one for the garden lol.

Me and Mr Messy took the little two to a local play farm, and they both had a great time there. The weather was lovely so they got to play on all the outdoor play equipment, including huge trampolines that they both loved. Princess Lollipop loved seeing all the animals even if she did decide they were all "pids" (pigs!).

Me and LMS took the little two to a different play farm to meet up with a friend who also has a daughter from Ethiopia. Little Prince and friend's older daughter didn't play together as well as they did last year, but still seemed to have fun together. We tried to get a photo of Princess Lollipop and friend's Ethiopian daughter and it was IMPOSSIBLE!! After nearly 20 minutes of trying we didn't get one with both of them looking at the camera, and most of them were of the girl's backs!!! It seemed almost as though they had planned and co-ordinated the photo resistance lol

We've also visited the local National Trust-like property a few times, they have a huge playground, large wooded grounds and a duck pond, so there is plenty to do and it allows Little Prince to run off a lot of steam. Princess Lollipop also loves the chance to run around, especially if she finds a stick to wave about like big brother does!!

Drama Teen spent a lot of the holidays slowly re-decorating her bedroom. It has gone from being a fairly cluttered, girlie lilac room, to a much more sophisticated teenage room with three white walls and one feature wall in bright red. It is a lot less cluttered, as we've removed one bookcase and her large TV stand. Unfortunately the new decor hasn't inspired her to keep it any tidier!! I've also spent a lot of time ferrying her back and forth to see her boyfriend and various other friends, I need to get one of those "Mum's Taxi" stickers for my car!! Drama Teen also attended the CLAPA Summer Camp, this time as a Young Leader rather than as a regular participant! As usual she really enjoyed herself and I think the extra responsibilites were good for her :-) She also visited our original hometown with her boyfriend for the Gay Pride Celebrations there. They stayed with Baby Sis for the weekend and although they missed the parade, they did get to see some of the acts (a drag queen take off of Girls Aloud!), go to the cinema a couple of times and get their faces painted with rainbows lol.

And talking of Baby Sis and Little Sis for that matter - both of them announced they are expecting babies within a month of each other :-) Baby Sis has had the scan where they can tell the sex of the baby and is having a girl, who will be spoilt rotten by her doting Daddy :-) Little Sis wants the baby's sex to be a surprise, so we'll have to wait and see if this one is a little brother or sister for her older four! You are so brave having FIVE kids, its not something I could ever handle, four is definitely ENOUGH for me :-)

Me and Mr Messy celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary, although for some reason Mr Messy seemed to think it was our 23rd!! Mr Messy was out on a charity photo shoot at the local golf course all day. We were both invited to the evening meal afterwards, and LMS did a fantastic job of babysitting the little two - who were both being quite a handful!!

We also started getting our new shop ready for its grand opening in October (on Mr Messy's birthday lol - well at least it saves me throwing him a party!!). LMS has been a Godsend with getting things organised, and I wish she was still here as its so hard getting things done with Little Prince and Princess Lollipop's "assistance"!! She helped organise the electrician (who started work today), the decorator (who is booked in for next week), the signwriter (who submitted revised designs today) and before all that negotiated with our new landlord all the details of us leasing the shop. She is a total star, and I miss her help and company so much. The electrician is coming back on Saturday to finish off the last bits. The decorator wants to start work a few days earlier than we planned, so I'm not sure if we'll have time to get the joiner in to box in the consumer unit and the storage heater! I'll have to see if the decorator will leave us some of the paint so we can finish it off ourselves if we don't manage to get the joiner in! Our new landlord is also a total star, he is totally flexible about what we do to the shop, he has offered us an ornate plaster fireplace for a total bargain price (Mr Messy was discussing what he planned to do to the interior with him and mentioned putting one in), he has refused to take a deposit (saying new businesses need the money more than he does!) and he is arranging for us to see a sample of the laminate flooring he uses in his other properties and if we like it we can have it at about a 1/3 of the price we were going to have to pay from the shop, and to top it all off he'll arrange for his floor fitter to come round and fit the flooring for less than £100!!!! Bargain!!! We can't believe how lucky we are to be dealing with a landlord who is so so helpful and supportive :-) Especially as this was the second property we had looked at, and Mr Messy was gutted to just miss the first one he had his eye on - this one is turning out to be so much better :-)

I'm sure we got up to more than that, but I can't remember any more lol. Hopefully back to regular blogging tomorrow, fingers crossed I can keep it up properly!!