Friday 28 August 2009

Summer holidays


Boats!


Tall ships Belfast


The Family at the Belfast Tall Ships event


Me and my sweetie in Spain


Grandma and the boys


Snorkelling


Me and Ben


Our holiday Villa


The Family Quinn


Covering Mummy in sand


Run!


My littlest cutie



Theme of the blog

Once again it has been months since I updated. Four in fact.

Plenty has happened. We went on a lovely holiday to Moraira, Spain with my Mum and co. The weather was glorious, the villa was beautiful, the pool was fantastic. We had no money but we had a wonderful time.

Then we got back and straight away the boys and Ryan had the chicken pox. In a way this was a blessing in disguise as we got to take some time off work. Which really helped with the next big thing: the house move.

We are now safely moved into our new house in Belfast. However it cost us a small fortune. The van hiring, the constant trips up and down the motorway - Lurgan to Belfast, Belfast to Lurgan. On and on and on. Plus we rather naughtily treated ourselves to a lot of new furniture and - more necessarily - new flooring for the downstairs rooms. I thought it would be strange moving. I loved our house at The Grange. It was our first home as a family. It was a nice house in a nice area with a nice garden. We moved into it when the twins were tiny 6 weeks olds and brought our third son home to that house after his birth. But in the furore of moving I just...haven't had time to even think about it. I was the last one at the 'old' house. Emptying out the last bits and cleaning up as best I could. And it was odd to walk around the empty rooms and hear my echoing footsteps. But we've settled into our new home quickly. It feels like home already. The boys love it and spend a lot of time out in the decent sized garden. It's a lovely quiet area of Stranmillis and our elderly neighbours have already been around to bring a tent and play tunnel, lego bricks and some garden toys for the boys.
I hope we'll be here for a few years yet. We have a lot of money issues to sort out and honestly, moving is so stressful I couldn't bear to do it again so soon. Not to mention the expense.

Which brings me to the final installment in our brave new world. We're expecting baby number four. Due at the start of April, I'm 9 weeks today. Not at all what we had planned. We were hoping to have our final sproglet after the wedding next May. The wedding has now been postponed until August 2011. I'm a bit gutted that I don't have my 'special date' wedding any more but this is more convenient for a lot of people and it will give us some time to save. Or at least get our finances back on track.

It was a very surprise sprog, conceived as a result of a rather unfortunate incident in Spain. I'm slowly getting used to the idea. It still doesn't feel quite real though. I just want this early bit out of the way. I feel sick and tired and quite, quite useless as both a Mummy and a partner at the moment. It doesn't help that I also have the 'flu at the moment and am holed up in bed. Ryan is being an absolute star and I don't know what I'd do without him. He has so much to do and he works so hard.
I don't have a midwife appointment until I'm almost 13 weeks so I've no idea when my scan date will come through. I hate the constant worrying and uncertainty of early pregnancy. And I know I'll have a fight on my hands to try and get the birth that I want this time around. I doubt I'll find many supportive health care providers for a VBA2C. I'm considering hiring a doula but I'm not sure we can justify the expense.

Anyway, I'm losing track of my thoughts so I'll leave it there and upload some photos instead.