Birthdays, feet and snow...

I'm making time for a little catch up post. So much has been going on but I haven't had time really to sit and write about it. Time goes past, and more stuff happens, and then I never get around to blogging about the things I was going to blog about.


On Tuesday Luke finally got the specially made orthopedic insoles. Remember he had his feet cast for them on 1st October? The children's hospital told me that they needed to be cast, made and fitted within two weeks so that he would be able to wear them before his feet grew too big. 6 weeks later, after hearing nothing about getting the insoles fitted, I phoned the hospital and was told their next free appointment was on 20th December! When I pointed out that his feet probably would not fit the insoles by then, they agreed, and arranged for me to visit the private clinic where they had been made, and were sitting in storage. So, that's what we did, and the private clinic have agreed to see Luke from now on, at no cost to us, on behalf of the Children's Hospital. The insoles are very strange looking, not at all what I was expecting. So I took a photo (of course!)





The good thing is that the orthotist told us only to buy Luke cheep shoes from now on. He says that the insoles will do the job, and expensive Clarke's shoes will get in the way, so we are to go for cheepy Dunnes shoes instead. Woo hoo. I was tempted to ask him to kit the whole family out with them! LOL.

Anyway, today is was snowing! Yes! Snowing! Never has a little boy been so excited, as little Luke was when he woke up at 7am this morning and discovered the roof windows were covered in snow! Sam and his friend had a snowball fight in their school uniforms, before school this morning. And Luke donned his welly boots for a walk through the snowy lawn. Steve went out to the back garden to take some snowy shots for his photography course, and slipped, fell flat on his back, soaking through three layers of clothes and breaking his camera (its muddy, wet and might work properly when it's dried out).


Our back garden this morning...

Jude's birthday was a lovely day. In the morning she opened her presents before Sam went to school. Her main present was her own digital camera. She also got a knitting set (make your own leg warmers), a beano comic writing set, a box of chocolates, Nanny McPhee DVD, amongst other things.

Luke helped me wrap up the presents the night before. He was also emptying my handbag at the time, and unknown to us had taken a £5 note from my purse and wrapped it up with with some new clothes that I'd bought Jude! We didn't discover it until she opened them, and of course she was delighted with the money and the clothes.

Luke helped Jude unwrap all the presents, and she was very good to let him. He was more excited than her I think! We bought her a big chocolate cake, and Luke had to put the 10 candles on himself. He couldn't wait to eat it.

In the evening Jude and I went out for a girlie evening together. We drove to Lisburn and watched Click at the cinema. It was a good film, and Jude enjoyed it as much as me. It was much sadder than we had expected, and really could have done with more comedy at the start before getting sad. It's a story about a man whose life is really busy, with work and family commitments. He becomes the owner of a Universal Remote Control, which controls his universe. He can skip scenes, fast forward, pause, etc through his life.

After the film I let Jude choose from any of the restaurants in the area. She chose pizza hut. By now it was 9.30pm so we both felt really grown up having a meal so late at night (and on a school night too!) We had pizza, garlic bread, deserts, we were totally stuffed and took plenty home for Daddy's midnight feast. When we got home we discovered that Steve had started painting the hallway (Shock!)

I asked Jude how she enjoyed her birthday. She said "it was cool, but the best bit was talking to you in the restaurant". Isn't that cute? She really enjoyed some quality time without her brothers.