oooops (or: granny ripple blanket ta-dah)

Well hello peeps - I'm ba-ack!  It was touch and go for a while there - I wasn't sure I'd survive the demands of the enormous piles of washing/mounds of dirty dishes/hordes of fighting children/days at work - but I did.  Phew.  Now, does anyone know why it is that all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, life can just go up a notch in the crazy stakes?  There hasn't been any big event or occurrence to have caused the unusual levels of busy-ness that I've been experiencing lately, but crikey - life really has been crackers.  Anyhoo, I'm aiming to just get through this next week (am working five days - oh em gee - I know I used to do that all the time, but that was in the days before I had three small people to coordinate too) and then I'm hoping life will just slow down a touch.  Please...
The few weeks since my last post have seen the following things happen:
✪ middle has lost a tooth (don't underestimate the importance of this event in the life of a six-year-old!)
✪ big has been on his first ever overnight trip with school - I didn't cry *proud of self*
✪ small has made the jump into big girl pants full time (though I'm now thinking that I'm not sure which is worse - changing nappies or endlessly traipsing potties full of poo to the toilet for disposal...)
✪ we have decided, after spending months teetering on the fence of indecision, that we are not going to move house and we are, instead, going to extend (oh yes, excitement in my neck of the woods is reaching almost unbearable levels).  Expect to be bored with updates on a regular basis...  Edit: yes, Fee, full commitment is required now!
✪ we've seen the Olympic torch (note to self: next time I think 'oh, it's so early on a Sunday morning, it'll be very crowded, I won't bother having a shower or brushing my teeth until we get home again, we'll never see anyone we know'.  Think again...  And of the four people we saw that we knew, one is a news reader on our local BBC news and therefore doesn't even get out of bed without a full face of make-up and a pair of shades on...)
✪ I've redecorated the boys' bedroom - floor to ceiling - spanking new wall colour (Farrow and Ball 'borrowed light', if you're interested) new light shade, new curtains, new bedding - the works.  I nearly killed myself twice - once when moving their bunk beds from one side of the room to the other (I just about burst everything in my entire body shifting that beast) - and the other time when their solid wood wardrobe nearly toppled over and flattened me (Mr N would have been a bit surprised to come home to find only hands and feet sticking out from underneath the wardrobe - a la wicked witch of the west.)
✪ we have invented a rather thrilling new game (I say 'invented' - you'll probably say 'pah - my family's been playing this tired old game for literally ever' when I tell you what it is - but for the moment, we are thrilled at our originality).  The game starts with one member of the family saying a category - eg dogs - then everyone has to decide what dog they would be if they were, indeed, of the canine persuasion.  (Without a doubt, we are: Afghan; Westie, whippet, labrador, border terrier).  The game is more 'hilarious' if you decide as a group what one member of the family would be - 'you'd be a bloodhound'.  'Ha ha!'  'Nooooo - that's not fair, I haven't got droopy eyes, you idiot.  Anyway, you'd be a greyhound, you skinny dork'.  'No I wouldn't - I'd be a border collie'.  'You wouldn't - everyone loves border collies - nobody loves you...' etc etc ad nauseum.
Hours of fun, I tell you...
On the crochet front, I've been a busy old bee, but for the moment I'm just going to show you this:

Ta-dah!!!

My lovely friend had her baby and so the blanket was duly edged in navy and sent off to keep him (Bertie) warm and cosy (and I bet he's had a lot of use from it in this cruddy weather we've been having lately).  Ooh, that reminds me - something else that's had a lot of use lately is my new wellies - thank you all for your suggestions for resolving my wellie crisis - I am now the proud owner of a lovely pair of black Hunters with a gusset.  Gussets - the best friend of ladies with walkers' calves (and ladies with bladder problems too, I should think, but that's a whole other gusset issue altogether...) x