Babies - Hannah born end of Jan, Ben born start of April. Both cuties, of course. Hannah was emergency C-section as she was breach. Amy went into labour and refused to go to hospital to start with as she wanted to finish cleaning the bathroom! Steve eventually convinced her to go and they found out Hannah's heartbeat was a bit ropey and she was breach so they rushed Amy into theatre. All went well and Hannah is now 10/11 months old, crawling about and very cute! She looks very much like Steve. but with Amy's eyes. Amy has now gone back to work (which I don't agree with, seeing as she doesn't actually need to) and Hannah goes to nursery 3 days a week.

Ben is the smiliest baby in the world. You just have to look at him and he cracks a huge grin at you. He's a much, much better sleeper than Sam was at this age. Possibly because we've been stricter with it. He's now commando crawling around the place and getting into everything. It's that fun age where he doesn't understand the word "no" and just eats everything. Sam of course is very impressed when he discovers Ben munching on yet another one of his toys but he's been remarkably good with him. He went through a phase of calling himself "Baby Sam" at the beginning and sitting in Ben's bouncer, but now Ben's becoming more independent he's chilling out more. I think it helps that I have my hands free more more so I can give him more attention again. he also started playschool in September, which was a bit tough at first, but he settled in fairly quickly and seems to enjoy it. We've also started looking into schools for him as it's only 18 months till he starts! Scary stuff!

When all the horrible money stuff started at the beginning of the year we had a bit of a scare that we would have to sell up. Our mortgage went sky high and we just couldn't afford it. We had the estate agents round and were about to put it on the market when a neighbour asked us if we'd thought about taking in a lodger. I looked about on line and was really surprised at how much the going rate is for a room in a house these days, so after some deliberation we placed an ad for Sam's room (annoying as we'd just just decorated it and got him all settled in there with his toys etc!) We had a 45 year old bloke answer first, who seemed nice enough and named dropped a lot as he supplied organic meat to all the top London chefs. We nearly went for it but then got contacted by Coralie, who sounded much more like out cup of tea. She moved in a couple of days after I came out of hospital with Ben and settled in pretty quickly. She's fab with the boys and it's nice to have some adult conversation in the day when she's not working. Frankly I don't know what I'd do without her as she's more like a mother's help than a lodger! We've also had our 15 minutes of fame as there have been various news articles about the "new breed of landlady" in the news lately, because of the credit crunch, and so far I have been interviewed live on Radio 4 for Woman's Hour and a picture of all of us has appeared in the Sunday Telegraph! She came up with us to Andi's folks for Christmas too so she definitely part of the furniture now!

I've got back into body modification a bit again, after my 3 year hiatus for childbearing! I've messed around sticking things in and taking things out of my ears and finally settled on a stretched on either side with a single stud above that. Still debating whether to wear my tragus or not. I've had my nose repierced for the 6th (and hopefully final!) time. I'm now wearing two of my four tongue studs, and considering putting the other two back in with a labret post and flat disc to make it more comfortable and less conspicuous. I've replaced my navel bar (God knows how that isn't healed up after 3 years and two babies!) and have had three shiny new additions in the form of dermal anchors across my left wrist. I'd been looking into them on line and decided I wanted to get it done. On Nick's myspace it said that he did them so I went to see him but was disappointed to learn that he is no longer piercing, and Capileo has shut down completely. Apparently he went bankrupt and as such isn't allowed to train under his name any more. I did some research and looked on a few forums, and a name that came up a few times with good reviews was Tiff Badhairdo at Opus Magnum in Brighton. We made an appointment to go and see her on Saturday and I was really, really impressed with her professionalism. She talked us through the whole thing and all the aftercare etc, and made she we were happy with all the sterilisation etc before going ahead. They took much longer to do than I thought (about 45 mins for the three) but I'm really pleased with them, they look fab and weren't really very painful at all. Just a sting as much as any piercing and certainly very funky in my opinion. They're my first semi permanent mod, as although they can be removed, they pretty much have to be cut out so I'll really need to go to the studio if I want them gone. They've really opened up a whole world of possibilities and they've got me quite excited about other stuff I could have done. My tattoo thoughts have started to clear too, and I'm now more certain of what I'd like done. I've an image of a vine creeping up my side, from my hip to my lowest rib, with a few flowers coming off it... however I've also been looking into scarification (as Tiff does that too and the small amount of her stuff I've seen is amazing) and I'm quite liking the more subtle look of that at the moment too. In any case nothing can be done until I've lost some weight, so I have to attend to that small matter first anyway! I start Lighterlife again in January (no set date yet) and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm totally geared up for it and would love to have started back in October time, but as I was still breastfeeding the counsellor advised again it. I've been talking to Vicky Mayne, who's been very successful on it, and also Sarah Wells, who although put the weight back on, knows exactly where she went wrong (didn't go to the maintenance meeting after the weight loss) and I'm feeling quite confident about the whole thing.

And on that epic note I'm going to finish uploading photos (only about 500 to do as it hasn't been done for so long!) and make lovely cup of tea! Tomorrow begins the shopping, cooking and cleaning for the second Christmas for us this year, on Sunday when Mum and Malcolm come down with their present for the boys. They still have a load under the tree from friends to open and they've really been spolied this year. Frankly, I find it a little disgusting how much they get, especially Ben (who's far too young to care!), and as I've cleared two cardboard boxes of toys out to make way for new ones I'm tempted to find a really good charity or children's home that might like a donation of nearly new toys.

Anyway - tea and photos ahoy! Will try to update more regularly in the New Year!