I still haven't ordered any WindowSox (but I will) {Bloom}
Check out Ktjean's gorgeous custom wedding dress {Bridal Express}
Win a copy of the second book in the Wags' World series {Chicklish}
Has anyone read Jay McInerney's The Good Life? {Five Minutes Peace}
Swoon over Laura Ashley's lace memo board {Hygge Nook}
Watch author Jenny Colgan chat about her working day (with baby!) {Novelicious}
Celebrate Susan Hayward's birthday {Pretty Vintage}
This morning we were driving to school and we spotted a hot air balloon in the distance.
"Look!" Harry shouted. "A flying house!"
(Although he's stopped pronouncing his aitches, so he actually said, "A flying 'ouse!")
We watched it for the rest of the journey and it just made me so happy. It really is the simple things.
(I can't wait to see this film, btw, it looks amazing and the house is gorgeous!)
You get to go to Disneyland...
... and you also get to draw on their faces to make yourself (and your friends - it was Ms Mac's idea!) laugh:
Harry and the rat from Ratatouille. One thing I was disappointed by was that there were hardly any new rides since I first went there, 15 years ago (the year it opened). Just Buzz Lightyear's Lazer Blast, in fact.
The newer films were hardly represented at all. No Bugs Life, no WALL-e, no Monsters Inc, no Ratatouille or The Incredibles. Not even Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Mulan, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Hercules, Tarzan, Hunchback of Notre Dame...
There was one Nemo ride and one Cars ride, but they were both in Disney Studios Park (and we couldn't get on the Nemo ride because the queue was never less than 90 minutes and there was no Fast Pass).
Anyway, that's enough complaining. Some more pics:
The world is a much sadder place without you in it.
This is the first song of his I ever remember hearing. But watch with caution. Has left me in absolute bits.
Yes, Harry is five today. I can't quite believe it. Five. That's big! He still seems like a baby to me. Although not as much like a baby as my actual baby...
... who was five months old last Sunday. Five months! It's flown by, it really has. I can't quite believe how much easier it's been with Joe than it was with Harry. Everyone keeps saying it's because I'm more relaxed, but it's not me, it's Joe. He really is an incredibly easygoing baby.
He was such a sweetie at Disney. He hardly slept during the day - and this is a baby who likes to be awake for one hour and then sleep for three or four - but he was still smiling and happy. Of course, he had a couple of total meltdowns, but that was because he was just so knackered but couldn't sleep because of, you know, things like gigantic mice shaking him by the hand (yes, Mickey shook Joe's hand and Goofy rubbed his head!). Oh and he got a fat lip on the Peter Pan Flight, which was certainly something to cry about (I should know, I cried about it too).
And the two of them are such good friends. On the flight back, Joe had been awake for about five hours and was getting to the back-arching point of tiredness. But then he heard Harry's voice and pulled himself up to sitting (I wish I had his stomach muscles). Harry said, "Hello, little guy!" and beamed at him. Joe beamed back. Harry said, "Can I give him a kiss?" I shifted Joe forward to kiss his brother and Joe laughed his head off. They kissed. Harry laughed, Joe laughed, me and D laughed. Joe and H beamed adoringly at each other. It was just lovely. Joe really does look at Harry with more love that anyone else.
And Harry, Harry is a sweetheart. We had such a good time at Disney and he totally took it all in his stride. We thought he'd be sad about leaving, but he was fine. ("We come back when Joe is five," he said.) There was TONS of Wall-e merchandise there and if there's one thing Harry can't resist it's a good Wall-e product (or even a bad one). There were a few things he fancied, but we said he could only have one. He picked an Eve action figure, was happy with that and didn't mention the others again. He did drive us mad asking if he could open Eve, but that was a small price to pay. (And at about £15, a much smaller price to pay than the £60 remote control Wall-e that I would have wanted if I was Harry!)
So Happy Birthday, Harry. You've brought us more joy in the last five years than we ever thought possible. Here's to the next five. (The five after that, I'm not looking forward to so much. And the less said about the five after that, the better.)
I saw this Sarah Applebaum wall art on Apartment Therapy and it just stopped me in my tracks because when I was younger I used to do doodles that looked almost exactly like this! I would start with, say, a star and just keep adding on and adding on. Clearly, I never should have stopped!
I hit 40,000 words on the adult novel (working title YOUR PERFECT LIFE) earlier this week and since I happily aim for the minimum word count, I call that halfway* there! Woo! And the most exciting thing is that I still have more plot to include and there's some stuff that will be earlier in the book that's come to me as I've been writing, so I'm (fairly) confident I will actually make it all the way to 80k.
Assuming I do, that'll be a first for me. Usually with adult novels, I get to the end, check the word count, find it's 35,000 and bang my head on the desk. That's why I much prefer writing YA, because 35k is finished - woo hoo!
I've also included a couple of characters from a previous (unfinished) book. The 71-page manuscript of that book has languished on a floppy disk (remember them?) for the past five years and I assumed it was lost forever (my Mac doesn't have a disk drive), but David managed to retrieve it yesterday. Hopefully, there'll be some stuff on there that I can pinch for this book.
I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of July at the LATEST. Fingers crossed, eh?
* Is this a real word? It doesn't look right...
