PHEW!!!... what a busy month March has been!

Well, I know its been a while but BOY have we been busy!!!!!

So, we returned from Oasis and I hit the ground running with a full week of reviewing our Special Needs service so that was a major hectic one!

We finished that week with Caitlin going off to see my parents. Nick, Izzy and I joined her on the Sunday for another yummy Sunday dinner (thanks Mum!) and a visit to a car dealership in Wakefield called the Car People. It was SUCH a rainy day - but Mum and Dad occupied the little people whilst Nick and I braved the weather to work out which car Nick would like to trade the TT in for. He wanted a big family / business car and I'm going to trade in my PT cruiser for a little car.... so, Nick ended up with a big BMW five series :o) Big joke on this is Izzy gets to nursery the Friday after Nick picked it up and told the staff there "Daddy's got a new car, its a Beemer" - "what's a Beemer" asks Sarah who looks after her "its a big fish tank" comes the innocent reply!!! Hehehehehehhee - kids say the cutest things :o)

Monday 5th March, I set off for Plymouth on the train with a colleague from work. My BLAST programme is being rolled out to all the daycare and nursery settings there (check out www.blastprogramme.co.uk if you want to see what I've been up to!). It was a 7 hour train journey but Paula (my colleague) and I chatted and chilled and it wasn't too bad. The training was over 2 full days on Tuesday and Wednesday and on Wednesday night I went to my sister Mel's house which was a super special bonus cos I haven't seen her for about 18 months. Mel and I got to chat and catch up and I spent the night with them, even seeing Mo off to nursery on Thursday morning before joining Paula on the train to come home. Have a look at a couple of pics of my niece and nephews (Millie, Tal and Mo) and some plymouth shots :o)
















After all of that, I got home on Thursday night and last weekend Lauren went to Dublin and Nick and the girls and I had a weekend at home. Friday night our friends Ros and Phil and the boys Joe and Finn came over for the night and we all went to Redcar on Saturday morning. It was VERY VERY windy but we still had a lovely time and then went to play on the slotties and had fish and chips! Saturday afternoon saw the four of us looking at caravans near Catterick - very tempting but in the end we decided to stick to our tent plan - but there aren't many good tent shops our way so on the spur of the moment we phoned my mum and invited ourselves over for Saturday night and a trip to their local excellent camping shop on Sunday!!!


Dad cooked a lovely dinner on Saturday night and on Sunday morning, Nick, Dad, the girls and I went to cannon hall whilst mum cooked dinner. Then after a yummy dinner, we went to Mitchells to look at the tents. Cannon hall is a fab open farm with an even more fab farm shop!! The girls fed the geese and then we saw heavily pregnant pigs and sheep and had a play on the new adventure playground there - have a look at some pics of us all!!








So, did we buy a tent??!?!?!?! You betcha!!!! A fab 4 bedroom tent called an Outwell Nebraska - and here's a pic!! We're going for a trial weekend to the Lakes this spring then our main summer holiday is probably going to be a week in Devon at the Woodlands campsite and leisure park - more details to follow!!



This week started with work as normal. On Wednesday, Izzy took a cake and some chocs into nursery for a day early birthday party - she counted down all week!! Her birthday was on Thursday and she got amazing presents - Fifi and the Flowertots, Little Pony, teddy bears, leap pads and books, Dora stuff, arts and crafts stuff, fab books - the list goes on!! She really enjoyed herself and totally understood what was going on and what it was all about :o) She spent her actual birthday with Lauren and called in at work to see my new offices and have a "happy birthday" sung to her by some of my colleagues! Lauren took her to Burger King for a treat (if you class fast food as a treat!! Izzy loved it!!) and played with all her toys with her.


Friday was Comic Relief day (red nose day) - for our foreign blog readers, its a charity event on TV where lots of money is raised for people in the UK and Africa and the brits wear red noses!! Caitlin had a "mad hair" day at school and had to pay £1 for the privelege of going to school with mad hair!!! Lauren also works at the school so had to do mad hair! Here are some pics of red noses and mad hair to show you what its all about!!!!




Yesterday (Saturday) she had her big birthday party at Crazy Corner with all of her nursery friends. It was lovely to meet and chat to all the Mums and Dads we just see in passing rushing in or out of nursery and the kids had a fab time. Here's some Crazy Corner pics for you....




The mad month of march finished with Mother's day today! I got a lovely picture frame with beautiful pics of the girls in it and some fab chocs ;o) My Mum and Dad came over for lunch and we just had a great family day together. Happy Mother's Day to the 2 most special mums to us - Jenny and Anne!!!! We love you both very much :o) Hope all Mums reading this had a truly fab day!! I know its not Mother's day everywhere today but Happy Mothers Day anyway!

As you may have noticed from the front page to my blog - I'm doing the race for life, a charity 5km run in aid of cancer research. Its all women who run it and Lauren and I are doing it together. I know 5km is not far, but I'm not very fit at the moment and my extremely flat feet are not the best for running so it will be a challenge as I aim to run the whole distance (no walking!) . Lauren and I start training this coming week - so keep us in your thoughts and if you feel so inclined, do check out my fundraising pages!!

Love to you all

Nikki xxxxxx