This winter is proving to be more of a headache logistically than the last one.

Last year it just got cold in November, snowed and just kept on like that all winter. It was a dry cold.

This year we have had cold and snow, but the first lot melted and the fields turned to horrible gooey mud. Then it got very cold and the horses were hobbling about because the mud had frozen into hard spikes.

With the up and down temperatures I am encountering odd problems. We had a bout of rain, followed by snow and then it turned cold, so when I got the horses in for the night I struggled to undo the buckles at their chests. The moisture from the rain had frozen them solid.One I couldn't undo at all and had to pull her rug off over her head.

Mud glorious mud!

Looks lovely, but it was minus 20 out there this morning!

So after minus 20 this morning it is meant to be plus 9 tomorrow!!!

Closely followed by 25 to 30 cm snow on Friday.

What is going on??? Its weird.

We have had two viewings on the hous. Actually the same person viewed it twice, but nothing came of it.

Its not unusual for a Hobby farm to sit around for quite some time here. There are locals who would love to buy it but havn't got the funds.

It has to be someone who has both the funds and the desire to look after 25 acres plus.

They are out there, but they don't seem to come along that often.

Certainly we wil be here until the spring I should think, probably next spring too.

We will have to wait and see.

I'm so annoyed as I write this.  Nothing new there I suppose!  I've always for some god forssaken reason been the sort of person that attracts these emotionally unstable types.  The words, 'I wouldn't normally tell anyone this but...' haunt me on an almost weekly basis.  It seems that people feel 'safe' with me, despite the fact I'm actually quite a bitch, they want to divulge personal atrocities and life struggles.  Often I am left uncomfortably peeling someone who's heartbroken off my floor after an hour of some sort of breakthrough I suspect therapists would charge quite a few bob for!  Steve is left dismissed and frankly quite annoyed at the amount of time I have spent with people.  Giving what is essentially my 'all' to this stranger that 'needs' a shoulder.  I suffer with this guilt syndrome you see.  If I don't listen, no one will, and I should act on this private heartbreak and help this poor vulnerable soul.  Or maybe, some may argue, its a hero complex, where I need to solve these problems.  Either way, its become a life hazard for me, and the payout is pretty bloody slim!  Mostly in fact, it brings a lot of burden to me.  As I get older, I'm not bloody learning either.  I struggle and continue to struggle with this simple question:  How much is too much?  I don't want to be cynical and closed off, but I am tired of being treated like a fool.  Like the last Nanny for example, who proclaimed her innocence about the theft allegations.  I stood by her and sure enough, she had been hoarding stolen items in her room - in our house.  I was devastated, but I still stood by her.  I've realised her pattern now though, she gets all sickly sweet with me and then BOOM I'm hit by some 'favour' request.  It usually happens when she's down in Wellington for her court sessions and needs a place to stay.  I have happily grown wise to this now, but it didn't stop her most recent attempts at manipulating me that saw me sat up writing a character reference for lawyer to show the Judge.  Steve stood there, 'what the hell are you doing?' but again I felt this guilt syndrome, if I didn't help her somewhere, no one else would.  I pay this cleaner weekly, who does a god awful job, but I felt sorry for her story about becoming single again late in life and her struggle to get 'back on track.'  Of course, there have been many more examples, far too many to count, but on this occasion my anger is with this someone recently.  I wrote only recently in my blog about how humbling her situation was, she's been down on her luck and where I can help her, I do.  Its come to the point where I've basically been throwing money at her .  I've had my suspicions that she's been using me.  Perhaps I have exhibiting my doubts about her without actually verbally communicating that.  She's started to become aware of this and perhaps realised she's erring incredibly close to losing a good thing. Sure enough, I found her this morning, lying on my kitchen floor in tears.  Swearing and cursing the world, all the people in it and the bible??!!  Luckily the girls weren't around.  And no, despite my recent experiences, its not the new Nanny!  Unforunately, she had picked rather a bad time for her nervous breakdown, as I had to drive Steve to drop his car off.  It was hard to make her leave, but she did.  This woman is 57.  She has a 15 year old daughter.  She has responsibilities.  I accept she's had a bloody difficult time of it, about 5 years ago and relied very heavily on those around her.  But that's a lot of time, her daughter needs her and she's been given so many chances and help by people around her.  But still she continues to effectively ruin her chances of ever getting herself anywhere.  I can only help her so much.  I can't live her life for her.  I can't carry her.  I barely know her and I have a family that need my energy and my time.  She called about an hour ago, in tears.  I explained I had just made dinner and will call her back.  So here I am, tired and dreading this call.  Now the guilt syndrome.  Am I the only one to help her right now?  Possibly.  But then how can I help her when she can't help herself?  I know that I'll find myself continually in this situation.  I don't know what it is about me that makes people think I can heal the world!!  I would struggle to burden friends when I'm having a hard time of it.  Let alone the first person that looks in my direction.    Anyway, in MY News, which I will write freely about my blog, but wouldn't talk about in person, is my concern surrounding Steve's health.  He's had some 'problems' recently - healthwise.  A few months ago we had a scary possibility thrown in our faces which shook our little world.  But after some tests, we seemed to be in the clear.  Unfortunately, we find oursevles back to the original fears.  Now we have more tests to face.  Its been a busy few weeks, we're both tired and run down.  That is hopefully all it is.  Ah bugger. 

We have put our hobby farm up for sale!

Since our boys moved to Toronto a year ago we have struggled being so far away.

When you have animals it is very hard to get time away and with the distances involved it is both costly and time consuming to make the journey.

We managed one trip back in May and have paid for the boys to visit, but its very expensive.

So we have decided to move closer. We are looking at the 1000 Island region/

Its about 3 hours east of Toronto, so we wont be living on top of them, but we will be able to even pop over for a day or a weekend without major expense and upheaval.

We have listed it now as it could take a long time to sell as Farms do not seem to sell overnight round here.

We love this area and NB is a very nice place to live.

There is good potential for us to earn a living form our farm, but we really can't stay so far away from our boys.

And so we have started the ball rolling and we will see what happens.

Our rescued kitten has not only survived but is running the household now.

Somehow I can't see him living in the barn.

We have called him Boots.

While we wait to see what happens with the farm we are busy battening down the hatches for winter.

My brother in law and his family have just been over for a visit. The day they landed back in London they had to scrape snow off the car.

Weird!

For the last couple of days we have been hearing a kitten under the hay in the bottom barn.

Today when we went down his mewing seemed fainter. On investigation he was discovered on the barn floor all cold and floppy. I took him up to the house and spent an hour or so with him cuddled up on me and after that put him in a box on a towel and with a towel on top of him in a box near the wood stove to get him warm.

As usual the dog helped out and looked after him too. The kitten thinks Chinook is his new mum.

I think the kitten is around 5 weeks or so. It can eat  cat food and lap cat formula.

By tea time he was quite perky and is all over the place.

When he is stronger and a bit older I want him to live out in the barn, but he is begining to get his feet under the table.  We will have to see what happens.

Two weeks ago when Steve called me to tell me he had a surprise I felt this dreadful feeling of dread in my stomach.  Neither of us like each other's surprise, it usually means money has been spent and something silly has been done!  I half expected to see him pull up on the drive in a new car.  When he told me he had booked us a little holiday, the feeling of dread didn't subside.  A holiday with three under 5s?  One of which is less than three weeks old!  Uh-oh!  I've travelled a lot pregnant and with two littlees, but three seems a little excessive!  In the week building up to the big departure, there was much stress.  I STILL had the cold, so I visited the Dr for some antibiotics because I was terrified that my ear would burst on the flight.  He expressed great surprise at what is the longest cold in history.  He gave me lots of drugs and advice on what to purchase to get me through.  I got the cat into the cattery, but there was only one place that had room to accommodate the dog and as the guy was the world's biggest areshole on the telephone, I decided that he might not be too good with Sam either.  A last minute phone around, and I found an agency that provide people to actually go to your house to look after pets.  Our local 'pet angel' was a woman I've met before so I had no problems hiring her to tend to Sam at home. We arrived at the airport late.  Steve had no choice but to dump the car in a 24 hour carpark as opposed to long term.  The checkin woman ran with our bags to the plane.  As we ambled on the flight we were the family that everyone glares at.  Two toddlers and a baby and we'd held people up.  Whoops!  Even the pilot made a dig over the intercom about late bags being checked in.  The girls were really good on the plane though.  Moons and Pip excitedly looked out at the window and Egg slept!  Perfect!  When we landed in Christchurch we collected our rental.  Neither of us could bring ourselves to rent a people carrier, so we opted for a Toyota Prado instead.  As much as I hate being unfaithful to Landrover, this car is perfect.  Plenty of room and handles pretty well off road as well.  We drove to Lake Takepo which became our base for three nights.  Staying at http://www.theresidence.co.nz/ (The Residence), which was wonderful for a large family.  We chose to drive to Wanaka and Queenstown from there and do some offroading along the way.  Lots of fun!  Steve and I have travelled around the SI a few years ago, it was great to see some of our old haunts again.  Lake Takepo was just magical, I don't think I realised how special it was until I'd seen it again.  We left for Hanmer Springs the final day, my favourite spot in the South Island, its exactly how I imagine Canada to look.  I really wanted to go out for dinner that night, but I was really anxious about entering a restuarant at the girls' bedtime to eat.  It reminded me of the first time we went out for dinner with Moons as a baby.  I was terrified!  What if she woke up?  What if she needed feeding?  What if I needed to change her?!  People might glare at us!  I'm glad that Steve forced us all out!  We ended up having a lovely stone grill dinner, Egg slept the whole time and the girls behaved incredibly well.  We were even able to enjoy a bottle of wine!  YAY!  I really didn't want to leave the next day.  I was finally in holiday mode!  People are so friendly in the South Island, the car was great and even the weather was mostly OK - even when it was miserable it was just 'cosy,'  I'd dreaded this holiday, but typically on the last day, I didn't want it to end.  Flying back was great, the girls were great again, right until we touched down.  Getting back into Steve's car, they reverted to their old ways.  Screaming and fighting and then Egg threw up all over herself!  Dramas!  Sam is really happy, I think the woman gave him a bath as well because he's all clean and shiny!  I forgot to get the cat, so I have to wait for the next pickup hours this afternoon to pick him up!  And its business as usual wading through calls and mail. 

Egg gets ready for the holiday!

The beautiful Lake Takepo

Girls at Lake Wanaka

I am poorly - otherwise known as sick in Canada.

Several times I have used the expression poorly if someone has been sick only to be met with blank looks.

Also the use of the word fortnight is rarely recognised. And don't tell your son or husband to go and put on a jumper in front of your Canadian friends or they will think that he is cross dresser. A jumper here is a kind of pinafore dress as far as I can ascertain.

We may speak the same language, but actually we don't.

Its fun to find out what the differences are though.

Anyway my cold has me up at 4:00am forcing down an imported Beechams hot lemon.

Thats one tip for those still to make the move over here. Bring much medication - Paracetamol, Ibuprofen etc in  your container or luggage.

The every day stuff is really expensive here.Compared to 24p a pack of 16 you will pay a few dollars.

Everyone who comes from Britain brings us drugs.

There is another expression. Drugs. Its ok if  a friend asks if you have any drugs. They are often not soliciting for narcotics, but may just have a headache.

I tell you the average Canadian needs a short course in the English version of English before they holiday over in Blighty. They run the risk of arrest or worse.

Things on the farm are good. I have been riding my little mare who is improving all the time.

The chickens who went through a lean laying time duing the hotter humid parts of the summer are now laying great guns. Also the 100 day olds we bought back in the spring are laying now too.

We have sold a few of the young uns, so we probably have in the region of 150 in total now.

We do an egg delivery round on a Friday morning. We deliver locally and as far as Moncton for $3 a doz.

We also have a cooler in our front porch with an honesty box and people stop by and pick up eggs as they please.

It tends to work well. We probably loose a little but not enough to notice at the moment.

On the subject of honesty, we were walking through a really nice subdivision the othr day. The houses are in the region of $400,000 upwards. On the open porches are some really nice patio sets with embroided cusions and the like. They wouldn't last two minutes in most areas of the UK.

Its sad to think that, but its true.

The holiday accommodation is almost done.

Shane & Chinook put the kitchen cupboards together for the Hol apartment.

The kitchen area taking shape.

The lounge/kitchen/dining area with the two bedrooms off.

Its all way past this stage now. I will take some more pics when its all ready.

This is Jill's response to having a nice hose down after riding. A good roll in the nearest dirt patch.

Luckily she scrubs up pretty well.

The turkeys are all but ready to be dispatched. we shall be sorry to see them go as they are quite good fun. Shane is struggling with idea at the moment.

He would make a good vegitarion if he didn't like meat sooooooooo much!

These are not named individually. They are collectively known as turkey dinner.

They are more rewarding to raise than the meat king chickens who just sit and eat and do nothing else.

The Turkeys lke to grub around and lie and snooze in the sun. They really enjoy it when the goats are in with them for the day. They used to sit in them when they were smaller. Now they are rivaling them in size.

Anyhoo its probably time I should try and go back to bed to try and sleep.

Firstly, for the record....I STILL have my cold! Longest cold in the world... ever!  I'm still a bit deaf in my right ear and I sound like I'm talking out of my nose - kind of like an Aussie, but less whiney! (Sometimes!).  If it wasn't for that, I'd feel great!  On Sunday we were out shopping, on Monday it was a beautiful day so we headed out for lunch.  Steve, Ella (who has now and from this moment on in the  blogs onwards will be known as Egg) and I sat outside enjoying a good lunch washed down with a pint of Montieths Celtic, something I've been fantasising about for the last nine months!  I couldn't bloody taste it thought!  Grrroan!  I've lost my ability to taste, so the Dom is still sitting in the fridge and the red wine I'd excitedly stocked up on, remains in the wine rack.  Egg is a fantastic baby, she's really laid back and enjoys four hourly feeds, which makes it easier on me!  She's really cute and cuddly.  The girls adore her.  Moons always wants to hold her and proudly told everyone at school about her!  Pip is very taken with her, she just stares at her and strokes her head.  It really helps having this Nanny here.  The girls love her, especially Pip.  I've been able to rest and take care of Egg and Steve has been able to get on with work.  I started this blog back in 2006 - just after Pip was born.  I was in a very dark place and people started sending me PMs, which politely told me not to kill myself!  Pip screamed all the time, she barely slept and had an array of digestive problems.  Steve and I had returned from a failed venture in Mexico.  We were completely broke and pulled on lots of credit and lived in the shadows to avoid debt collection agencies.  Steve struggled to find work, only compounded by the fact that he couldn't go to all interviews because we couldn't afford the bus fair for him to get there.  We were forced to live with my parents, who aren't the most nurturing souls on the planet!  The labour had been horrific and left me in lots of pain, but my parents were eager for me to lose weight and not lose my ability to do housework.  They were awful to Moons daily because they're of the belief that children should be seen and not heard (you may wonder what went so wrong with me!!).  We really were on the brink of despair.  Our luck changed when Steve was finally offered a job, his first few paychecks had to go on debts to save us from more trouble.  We decided to get enough money together to get flights and a bit of a buffer and leave the UK for our new life in NZ (with Steve being a Kiwi we felt sure that immigration would be fairly easy).  It was one hell of a risk to take, no savings, no plans. Two young children.  But we would have been, I feel, in a lot more trouble staying as we were.  We put our mental health before anything else.  Although I've never been keen on NZ, its certainly the best decision we could have made.  I never would have thought I'd be sat here, after my third child, in a lovely home, with a Nanny to look after the girls and me actually enjoying being a new Mum to a new baby.  Its such a remarkable difference back from my first entries in 2006 - which I can't bring myself to read yet, feeling its still a bit raw.  There has been a lot of stress here in NZ, but I still don't think its anywhere near how we felt in the UK.  There has been some stress over the last few days.  Egg is still quite yellow, so she had to have some tests.  Fortunately the jaundice isn' bad enough to warrant treatment.  Pip's appointment with a psychologist came around.  It was a long time ago that I was forcing the GP to refer her to a psychologist.  I've been anxious about her development.  I know that Moons is advanced so not a great benchmark, but I do feel that Pip has struggled to learn speach, and she still doesn't sleep much.  The GP wanted to put it down to second child syndrome.  My insistance paid off.  An evaluation has revealed that Pip is a little behind her milestones.  She's not a 'special' child and won't require assistance at school, but they have suggested we get some guidance from a speech therapist and developmental paycholoigist to encourage her motor skills.  Its exactly the outcome I wanted.  I wanted to give her the right support and I wanted the direction to do that.  We have that now.  We also have a prescription for a drug that mimics the chemical in the brain responsible for inducing sleep because she is simply unable to wind herself down at night.  Its a temporary measure to encourage her own brain to do what its supposed to.  I'm glad that the psychologist didn't see me as a pushy Mother with high expectations and has instead suggested ways to help Pip reach her potential.  The Nanny has been incredibly receptive to this and has been helping by reading with her and repeating words with her.  Something we do anyway, but its great to her have on board as well.

I just wanted to say thank you to all the people that messaged me and left comments for me following the birth of Egg.  Its so nice to receive your thoughts and warm wishes.  Its quite incredible really, I received so much support right at the start when times were very hard and I've received some wonderful comments more recently.  Sure, there's some 'not so great' comments and PMs, but they pale in comparison to the support.  Thank you!

Here's another photo of my lovely Egg..

For prosperity and for anyone that's interested (!) I thought I would record our birth story on here.  Of course, it wasn't without its dramas!

On Thursday night, I barely slept a wink.  My cold was bad and I was full of anxiety about the following day.  At 4am I drifted off to sleep and was awoken by one of Steve's many alarms (!!) at 6am.  I niavely thought my head would feel better, but I felt even worse.  It was like my head had been tightened in a vice overnight.  I was blurry, tired and all stuffy.  We set about getting ready and explaining to the girls how the day would pan out.  The Nanny arrived early at 7am and got stuck in with the girls.  There was no doubt about us using her over the weekend.  She was awesome and I felt really relaxed about leaving her alone.  We set off for the hospital, Steve and I barely spoke in the car, just held hands and tried to make sense of what was about to happen.  When we arrived at the hospital we were taken to room 5, the same room I'd been in just a few weeks ago when I had the scare.  The only difference was that the bed had been replaced with a 'labour bed' and there were towels and all sorts of other bits on hand.  Excitement and adrenaline started to take over.  My OB arrived and introduced me to the midwife who would tend to me during my stay.  The process of what to expect was outlined to me.  The OB would break my waters, I'd have an hour to walk around and bring on contractions and if nothing happened, they would introduce syntocin to bring on labour.  I reiterated again my desire to try the epidural as this time I was keen for a relaxed and painless labour.  At 8.30am the OB broke my waters and Steve and I started roaming the corridors.  I told Steve that I should have been wrapped up in bed with tea as I feeling so bad - not walking up and down a flight of stairs!  It was crazy business! I did wonder about my capacity to reserve energy for later on.  I returned to the room an hour later and reported that there wasn't one single contraction.  I sat down, and then it started!  Sporadic and not terribly painful at 5-8 mins apart.  Fortunately the syntocin drip wasn't needed.  They called the Anaesthetist, a lovely young man called, Alex.  He came and talked to us about the epidural.  I didn't know much about it, only that I wanted something to take the edge off and as far as I knew, the epidural was the only thing that wouldn't effect the baby.  It was important to me though that I didn't lose the feeling totally and had some mobility in my legs.  He said he would give me a weak epi, and stood and answered all of my questions that I quick fired at him.  It is my SPINE afterall!  I was surprised that the setup time took about 20 mins, and then he was fishing around in my spine.  The contractions were still coming during all of this.  I felt happy that we'd got it in time.  However, I continued to feel the contractions and sure enough, Alex was called back.  I could feel dripping down my back and sure enough the catherter thing had popped out of my spine!  I had to endure the whole process again to get another put in, which wasn't terribly easy with the contractions.  By now it was lunctime.  I was feeling very weary, sore and started to question my ability to follow through with this labour.  My midwife, Rachel was awesome.  She had a dry sense of humour and we got on extremely well - makes it that much easier!  My blood pressure stayed consistent so they were able to keep topping up my epi.  However, I was STILL in pain!  Rachel told me I had the amount of drugs in me to numb a horse!  Half an hour later - I had enough in me to numb an elephant!  The epi had slowed down my ability to move my legs, numbed my belly and hips, but I could feel my cervix and I could feel the contractions!  Great, only the outside of me was numb!  Not the bit that matters!  Alex said it was rare, but for some people, the epidural just didn't work properly.  There was nothing else to do except offer me a spinal - which I definitely didn't want.  So time dragged on, the midwife got me some gas and air and I was started to feel very emotional.  I was too tired to scream in pain, I was actually trying to nap in the three minutes between contractions.  I struggled to focus.  I really did feel weak and tired.  I felt the baby move down the birth canal and knew it was time to push.  The contractions - although painful didn't move closer together, so I was at a loss to use them to help with the labour.  It was very emotional for me.  I had to find a focus.  My OB had arrived back and her and the midwife tried to help guide me through the process.  The midwife was monitoring the heartbeat - which had stayed healthy, but I noticed her tone taking  a slightly different edge, presumably as labour was stalling with the baby lodged in the birth canal, the baby was finally not feeling so great about the whole thing. I could picture this baby stuck in there, and told myself that she needed me and I needed to get her out.  I pictured hearing her first scream and how badly I wanted to hear her and have her with me.  I pushed and pushed, I have to say that of all of them, this was by the far the hardest labour.  I had planned for this one to be breezy, but it didn't go to plan at all and being so ill had such a huge impact.  Finally at 3.41pm after six hours of labour, Ella came out into the world.  She was really blue and made a few grunting noises.  She was popped on my belly and I said, she's not breathing properly.  The OB was busy tidying me up down there, and the midwife was scuttling around getting towels, etc.  No one seemed to hear me, but I kept on muttering, she's too blue, she's not breathing properly.  I was so overwhelmed and struggling to focus, but I wanted someone to notice that something wasn't quite right.  Finally, the midwife decided to call the peaditrician to check the breathing.  The ped said it might be from getting cold and having a sluggish start.  I should try feeding her and seeing if that kick's start her.  Feeding wasn't a concern, she latched on straight away and got stuck in!  When things had settled a bit, I asked Steve to pop and get some food and drink.  I was beside myself with hunger and thirst.  He went on his way and the ped returned.  She said she was concerned that Ella's breathing was still not quite right and said she would take her right away to the neonatal unit to check her vitals and oxygen levels.  She started to wheel the little cot out and I had to surpress the urge to scream after her!  I called Steve on his mobile and told to him to get back.  In his panic he threw all the food down and raced back.  A midwife came in with a wheelchair and told me she'd take me up to be with my baby.  As we entered the department which every parent hopes and prays they never get to see, I had to stop myself from crying.  Lots of tiny little incubators with tiny little babies.  Parents sat faithfully next to these incubators with flashing lights and periodic bleeps, unable to hold their babies.  My heart ached for them.  The pediatricians were amazing.  Really nice people, so strong and dedicated.  There was my Ella, all wired up, being pricked and poked.  I just sat hopelessly watching.  The first tests weren't clear enough, so they had to do it again.  Incredibly the results were produced in seconds.  Levels were a little low, but not worryingly so.  Ella could leave the neonatal unit, but would have to stay overnight in the hospital in case her levels dropped, as she was vulnerable to infection.  I have to say, that initial wait was the hardest of my life.  As we left the unit, a Dr smiled at us and told us he liked these discharges.  I left the other tiny babies behind, the monitors, the anxious, dedicated parents.  It was a glimpse into a world of raw hope, strength and sadness.  Back in the room, we were all pretty exhausted!  Steve and I decided it would be best for him to head back so he could be there when the girls woke up.  Ella and I finally got to sleep, then a midwife came in and told us a bed had become available in the ward - which I'd hoped wouldn't happen!  I hate wards, post natal wards are of course the noisest!  Ella's breathing had completely stabilised by now but I felt it would be too late to go home.  The ward was awful.  70s decor.  Babies screamed like cats in a cattery.  In my ward was the token freight train snorer and the token anxious Mother that buzzed the midwife every single time her baby made a noise. There was communal toilet with an overflowing waste bin, empty soap dispenser, etc.  The kitchen was covered with notices about how to stack plates, which mugs to use, how things should be left, etc.  Ella slept peacefully while I took a midnight tour.  The tv room had an old monitor, flaking wallpaper, dirty old chairs, reminders not to steal furniture, and an half eaten packet of crisps.  Yes, this is the ward made to offer new Mums comfort and support.  Nice.  I knew I wasn't going to get any sleep here and I ached for my home, my family, my privacy, peace and all my creature comforts.  By 12.30am I was entering into negotiations with the night staff to make my escape!  By 1am I was waking up Steve to come and get me!  By 2am, I was tucked up in my own bed.  Ella went from strength to strength, feeding, sleeping, happy as a baby could be!  I've been hit with some pretty awful afterpains, which are at times, worse then contractions.  Moons is very excited about her new sister.  I was mostly worried about how Pip would react, but she's just stood and stroked the baby's hair.  I'm really proud of how nurturing she is, she's a real gentile character.  Periodically both girls will run in to say hi to the baby, and then dash off again.  The Nanny has been awesome, the girls are really settled and happy.  The house is tidy, Steve is being wonderful.  I've got lots of rest - far more then I ever did with when I had the other two.  It is SO nice to have this time recover.  My cold is STILL insanely bad!  I'm deaf in my right ear, and I'm all bunged up I can barely breathe.  I have to say, this is the worst cold ever!  Steve gave me a beautiful card in which he tells me how proud he is of me, how much he loves me and thanks me for the new baby.  Its the most beautiful card and the most beautifully written thing I have ever seen.  I really do feel so blessed.  I can't believe its all over now!  Nine months, gone in a whirl.  I've finally met my baby!  I'm just really disappointed that I can't smell her!! I would love to enjoy the new baby smell!  Squeaks coming from the bassinet!  Time to go!

Ella Grace arrived on August 29 @ 3.41pm, weighing 7lbs 16oz.