Spring cleaning seems to have come late in our house, but seeing as the summer has never quite arrived I figured that's ok! I guess it started when we decided that Callum was old enough to sleep in a big boys bed and not in the cot. That triggered the 'no more babies - so let's sort through ALL the baby stuff'. I took 2 big bags and a box of mainly baby things to the local charity shop. I did keep loads too; like the cot, moses basket, cute baby clothes and all the lovely Mamas & Papas bedding. The kitchen cupboards all had a good sort through and clean also, not easy with two boys around. Callum was a particular 'help'; standing on the stool the same time as me, passing me breakables from the cupboard and running off with chocolate bars! On Monday I hired a Rug Doctor carpet cleaner, a kind of heavy duty wet vacuum cleaner. It was a long slog to do all the carpets, thankfully our 5 bedroomed house is only carpeted upstairs, but it was worth it. I was shocked at the colour of the water that came out, like muddy puddle water, and buckets of it too, about half a bucket of water per room. Today Jeff and I sorted through our clothes and produced 2 more bags for the charity shop. It really is incredible how much stuff we own that we don't need, use and forget we even have! So the house has been pretty much decluttered from top to bottom, except for the garage - but that can wait for another day.

Of course all this clearing out has left some space for new things to find their way in. A shopping trip to Southampton yesterday helped with that little matter - a girl needs a bit of retail therapy after all that housework!

I came home with a Kraft photo album and Kraft A5 scrapbook from Paperchase, a cute Fat Face bag (which contained a t-shirt for Callum, alas nothing for me), two Charlie and Lola DVD's (these are mainly for me, although the boys were very excited about them too) and a t-shirt from Gap (I'm liking the retro look).

PJ knows that I have been thinking more and more about buying a pair of pink crocs. But my heart now belongs to an illusive pair of Rocket Dog shoes that I saw in the sale and not in my size, well isn't that just typical. So last evening I searched the internet for said shoes and found them in a different colour which I am now also smitten with. Purchase done, these little beauties should be arriving tomorrow - very, very excited. I guess what they say about girls and shoes is right after all!  I also tracked down my first love, and if the shoe fits tomorrow (so to speak), I may well order them too. There's me, never heard of Rocket Dog before until the 'crop circle' evening with Janine, Sheila and Leslie - who incidentially was the one wearing another pair of rocket dog shoes.

AND in the other news...

Our trip to Oxford on Sunday was great, such a pretty town. We met up with my friend Susanne, her husband Rob and their girls Isabelle and Hannah.

We had a lovely picnic down by the river and the kids ran around and played together. They got a little carried away playing with sticks and when Rob told them to put the sticks down and not throw them, what did they do? - they threw their sticks at him. We (including Rob) had to laugh at his level of authority! Our boys were very impressed with their buggy board and had to try it out, taking turns to ride on it and even riding it together.

I did a layout about Callum's week of birthday celebrations, lucky boy. It's called 24/7 as his birthday is on the 24th July. I didn't have a / so I used a . instead, I think that's OK don't you? I'm going with the flow, as Ali Edwards would say.

And finally I'll leave you with this photo snapped out of the window last night.