A matter of choice

Dear Leonidas,

Today is your 4th birthday, I told you we'd get there eventually after all those weeks of counting down the days!  I know this has seemed such a long time coming for you as your friends have been four for ages now and you have been asking me for so long when it would be your birthday.

You are so very grown up now, going to school every day and even sometimes even saying goodbye to me at the gate and going in on your own. We are all very proud of how well you are doing at school, speaking Greek all the time and getting on so well with the other children.

You love playing with your friends, and on the whole you all get on very well.  You love to go out, whether it is to the park, beach or pool or visiting Daddy at his shop.



You have learnt so much in the past year, you can read brilliantly and there's no stopping you when it comes to picking up more information.

Your latest love is playing on the Wii and it amazes me how fast you have learnt how to do it all and ha…

Making decorations for his 'Spiderman party' next week

Last year I showed Leo how to play his Leapster game, today Louka picked it up and knew exactly what to do!


After who knows how many times I've built Leo tracks I think he's now mastered it -  he did this all by himself

Choosing a Dvd together - not that Louka actually had any say in the matter even if he had understood!

Dot-to-dot with Nana

At a birthday party, here is Louka enjoying some party food!

Why is it that no matter how many brightly coloured musical  interesting toys you have, babies always have more fun with things that were not designed to be played with.


And that this is true for every baby as after you've taken a photo you realise you've been here before....


Although it turns out I do have a new spoon!

This morning at my Slimming World group everyone was talking about the 'Scan Bran Challenge', apparently it's been taking the UK groups by storm and everyone is doing it!  One of the ladies in our group tried it last week and lost an amazing 5lb so many of us thought it was worth a shot and have decided to give it a go this week - I've never seen so many people buying Scan Bran before!


Scan Bran is not one of the most popular foodstuffs about but as an aid to slimming alongside food optimising it really works.  Scan Bran is basically fibre, and in the simplest way possible helps your weight loss by *ahem*  'clearing you out'

The challenge is to eat 5 slices (1 healthy extra or 5 syns) a day for 6 days of one week along with drinking lots of water - the water is necessary to help flush your system out.

The secret is to find recipes that make the scan bran edible, although I have heard of people eating them like crackers with various toppings, to me that sounds …

I read this book so many times to Leo got rid of it along time before Louka arrived, I was so pleased to be given another copy and Louka loves it just as much.  Just like Leo he loves the last page and as soon as he sees himself he dives at the book and mushes his face on the mirror!

Everyone loves it when Daddy is home by bedtime!

The best things in life are free!

Gotta love a sleeping baby!

Louka is so interested in everything Leo is doing now, sometimes Leo is not happy about this new developement but on the whole he is loving showing his little brother everything. 

Louka loved the soft play place today, he's been in once before but now he's crawling and trying to climb on everything it is much more fun!

My favourite photo today is quite a random one for me but while Leo was drawing on his chalk board this just appealed to me.

The summer season is well underway here in Cyprus, and in a months time the schools break up for the summer holiday.....yes you did read that right, the school year finishes mid June and the kids are off until September!

Aaron has been back at work now for over a month and so far we have survived, the next challenge is to do so without Leo being at school every morning. I want to enjoy the summer with the boys and get out and about even though I do find it very hard with both of the boys.  It's always so tempting to take the easy option and do the same old things but last summer I feel I missed out on lots of things while struggling with a big baby bump in the heat.

I've been thinking of ways to keep us all occupied, both the boys and me, and in typical style I decided I had to make a list.

It's more of a list of ideas to come back to rather than a definite 'we must get all these done'  and as I don't like the name 'bucket list' Lauren from Real Housew…

Apart from the birth of Louka, 2012 was not one of my favourite years, it started off with Aaron being out of work and us getting used to the fact we were to have another baby.  Then Aaron got a job which was great although I was plain terrified at the thought of being pregnant, dealing with Leo and eventually having a baby almost without him as he had to work long hours, 7 days a week.

Then it got hot,  oh boy did it get hot!   I will never NEVER forget how bloody hot that summer felt being nine months pregnant in August!  I wasn't happy, it was so uncomfortable, it's hard going at the best of times when the temperatures are consistently in the high 30s / low 40s but with a very large baby bump it was horrendous!
I wrote a post 'When the sunshine's grey' and for the first time I had a good old moan on my blog. I was whinging but I stand by it all - I was pregnant, hot, bored and generally not a happy bunny!
When Aaron started work again this year I was worried, in…

Sunday was Easter here in Cyprus and Leo was over the moon with his Spiderman egg, a week later and it's still in the fridge as he announced on Monday that he didn't like chocolate anymore. I daren't eat it though as I'm sure he'll change his mind very soon!

With thanks to my Mum, Monday was a fab child free day at a local pool with one of my best friends!

Tuesday, and Sarah's last night in Cyprus so once Aaron got home from work we went out for dinner and drinks in Protaras. The dinner was nice but once we got into a bar for cocktails I wished we'd skipped the dinner and gone drinking instead as we only had time for two before being picked up by my Dad at midnight! 
Unfortunately that was the only thing about the evening that made me feel 18 again - and as Louka woke within an hour of us getting home I realised it had been a very good thing that we had been for dinner!

Louka playing with Sarah's suitcase, maybe hoping to stop her leaving! The week wen…

These last few weeks seem to have passed in a bit of a blur as I attempt to get used to the arrival of the summer season and Aaron's return to work, but despite a rather neglected blog I have so far survived.  I may have lowered my standards somewhat - random tidying up involving hiding mess or moving it somewhere else, far too much time spent by Leo playing on the Wii while I'm cooking/feeding Louka/ cleaning...   but I do have two children who are (mainly) clothed, fed and happy... well minus the teething and tantrum moments!
Louka is still not a good sleeper ( there's another blog post there!) and because of this I'm often in bed not long after 9pm. Considering I'm usually just finishing cooking dinner at 8pm or still tidying up it seems like I'm not getting anywhere fast.
I have the longest ever list of blog posts in my head to write and I miss being able to keep up with myself! Over the last few weeks I've missed so many of the blog linky's that I …

On Sunday, my friend and I took the boys on an Easter Egg hunt at CyHerbia Organic Herb Gardens. A brilliant day and the boys loved it!




Our first proper beach and pool day of the year and first ice cream!

Spent a lovely afternoon at my friends house on Thursday and Louka had his first swim. I wasn't sure if the water would be too cold for him, or if Leo and his friend would be bothering him with all the splashing they were doing but he loved it. 

One of my best friends from England arrived Thursday night and we spent the day at a local hotel pool with the boys, it was a great day - Leo played very well on his own for ages, we swam together and he eventually remembered he could float with armbands on and I took Louka in a proper pool for the first time. However I managed not to take a single photo all day until I realised late at night when we were sitting on the balcony with our drinks, pizza and laptop listening to old music on youtube!

We had a day at home today with the paddli…

Considering how many photos get taken in this house each month we have very few of all of us, I think the first photo taken of Aaron and I with the boys was at Christmas when Louka was four months old!

We kept meaning to get one all winter while Aaron was off work, knowing it would be difficult once he went back as he works 7 days a week and gets in after the boys have gone to bed. The week before he started we had my parents come up for a BBQ and I made sure we finally got our photos. They were worth the wait though, we ended up having loads done trying to get one where everyone was smiling and looking in the right direction, not easy with a baby and an uncooperative 3 year old!