Look who's arrived!!!

On Monday morning at 2oclock we got woken up by Sophie's boyfriend Joe to tell us Sophie's waters had broken in bed so me and Noel shot out of bed and went downstairs to see Sophie i said we had better ring the hospital so when Sophie was on the phone to the midwife she was asking if she was having contractions and sophie said no i don't think so at this point i noticed sophie was having a contraction so i said yep you are which was quite funny. anyway, i went to run Sophie a bath and get the last bits sorted for her hospital bag so that when she got ready she could head in to the hospital so when she got there she had a pain relief injection which made her really sick and her blood pressure shot up so she decided to use the gas and air which didn't really do anything so she was in alot of pain so opted for an epidural which made her relax more so after a 16 hour labour little Daisy Mae made her way into the world weighing in at 7lb 1oz and she's absolutely gorgeous, i can't even begin to put into words just how it feels to become a Nana it's just the most amazing feeling and i am loving it. I feel totally blessed to have what we have and i couldn't be prouder. Welcoming her into our family has been lovely all of her Aunties and Uncles lover her so much and i just know she's going to be spoilt rotten and in just a few more weeks we will be welcoming our new addition into the family how can our life get any better we are so very lucky
Welcome to the family Daisy Mae xx

Weekly pregnancy update 34 weeks!

Well i'm now 34 weeks with #16 and i'm feeling good apart from still not sleeping that well and heartburn is really starting to move up a gear but it's not to unbearable, i have my midwife appointment on Wednesday so i will get to find out if he is still breech and to be honest i really cant tell although i'm still getting kicks very low down i have been getting more kicks at the side and top of my bump so maybe just maybe he will have been a good boy and turned, i have been doing lot's of things to try and get him to turn this week I've been on all fours and iv'e had an ice pack on the top of my bump which he didn't like to much and was moving like crazy.
This week i have to make the decision whether to change hospitals because my hospital that i'm booked at are been very very funny about filming anything there and it's making me wonder if they have a problem with me or just big families in general and after a comment that one of the midwife's made about our family and big families in general it really has made me feel so angry to the point that i really feel like i need to put a massive complaint in it was totally unprofessional of her and for someone in a position of trust like that i just feel like i really don't want to give birth there anymore so i am going to look into transferring.
Sophie is now 38+2 so not long now well she could come any day now really and i think she's really starting to feel fed up with been pregnant and just wants it over with now.

We also picked up Sophie's pram for her this week which was a nice surprise for her when we walked through the door with it it took her a while to realise what it was as it was in a box
Here it is and Sophie loves it x

What a busy week!

This week i've been trying to get organised for the children going back to school so i've had to buy 9 school uniforms and 9 pairs of school shoes plus lunch boxes and PE kits it's just never ending , i went to matalan for all the uniforms and Ellie was so funny the woman on the checkout said the total and Ellie looked at me and said oh mummy that's alot of money the woman behind the counter found it so funny bless her Ellie is always the one to come out with things like that she's so funny so i think we are finally organised for them going back to school now which is good for me because i usually leave it till the very last minute, Luke and Millie are going to high school this time and they are so excited about it i just hope it lasts i think it's great that they are in the same year and they have each other they often get asked if there twins.I think they are more than ready to go back to school now with the constant play fighting and paddys that have been going on this week i feel like i've been constantly having to use the time out step and i very rarely have to use that one but have felt myself constantly saying right time out and it's mostly been Katie and Josh the little monkeys that have been sat on it.
  we made some cupcakes the other day that they really enjoyed doing and they did look pretty good and tasted even better we were very chuffed with them
yum yum
So this week we have also decorated Josh and Max's new bedroom after having a bit of a change around of rooms and this was what we found when we went to took the children in at night
it was a bit like how many children can you fit in a bed it was so funny they had all gone and got in Millie and Katies room so there was 6 of them in here with 3 in each bed it was so sweet it just goes to show just how much they absolutely love each others company and really hate been on there own i sometimes think we could get away with living in alot smaller house, we have all these rooms but some don't even get used it's crazy and this week little.
  Oscar has got another tooth so he now has 2 teeth on the bottom i don't think it's going to be long before he starts crawling because he's getting up on all fours now but just isn't going anywhere i think he much prefers to just roll everywhere because he can get from one side of the lounge to the other in record time im suprised he doesn't go dizzy because i do just watchimg him roll.
The children found a big cardboard box the other day so thought it would be fun to get in it and go down the stairs it was so funny i tried to take a picture of Katie coming down in it but she was so fast by the time the camera had responded to it she was at the bottom of the stairs anyway hubby decided to have a go because he's such a big kid
 Me and sophie were laughing so much im suprised we didn't go into labour he really cracks me up sometimes i think i actually have 16 children already.

Weekly pregnancy update 33 weeks

My weekly pregnancy update with #16 well this week i've been feeling so uncomfortable and just huge, he still feels breech because i'm still getting all the movements down the bottom and my ribs are so painful which i think is because his head is there i just feel like he's put on so much weight this week and his movements are getting so uncomfortable, the heat is really bothering me too i just can't seem to get comfy i think out of all of my pregnancies this one has been the most uncomfortable which i'm putting down to that fact that the little monkey is breech i've been doing the exercises to try to get him to move i even tried sitting with a bag of frozen peas on the top of my bump lol they where freezing but nothing seems to be working so far but i'm just going to carry on doing what i'm doing and hope he does turn but i know i've still got a few weeks so i'm not to worried yet, i'm also finding that i get breathless really quickly and by the time i've got up to the top floor of the house i feel like i need oxygen he's really squashing my lungs i've got my midwife appointment next week so i will get to find out if he is still breech on the plus side i am sleeping a bit better with the thanks to tonic water as disgusting as it is it really does seem to work.
 my bump pic at 31+1
We have just decorated the nursery this weekend which was fun all the children helped out and Max even built Caspers cot with a little help from daddy he was so chuffed bless him that he had managed to do it.





The pictures of Oscar and Casper's new nursery now all we need is little Casper..

What we've been up to this week

This week has been lovely, we took the children to Happy mount park which is just down the road from where we live they had so much fun it was a lovely day so they got to play in the water part which has lot's of water fountains i was stood watching the children playing not realising i was stood on one when it went off i got absolutely soaked much to the amusement of the children it was very funny Max didn't want to come out when it was time to go they loved it so much.

Josh having fun in the water

Tillie and her big sister Millie having fun 

Eating there ice creams.

My mum and dad have had Ellie Aimee and Josh for the weekend and it was so quite we have definitely found out who the noisy ones are in the house, but it was so strange not having them at home and the rest of the children really missed them.This week Oscar has learnt quite a few new things he has learnt to clap his hands he got so excited when i got all excited it was a proud mummy moment and now claps his hands all the time and we have also got our first tooth it's on the bottom left and bless him he hasn't cried or been up during the night at all he's been so good he really is such a chilled out little boy.

Filming for 16 kids and counting this week has been very full on and i'm feeling shattered and wondering if we will do the next programme because it has been so exhausting with such long filming  days but for now i'm just enjoying a few days off till more filming this weekend 

Weekly pregnancy update!

I'm now 32 weeks pregnant with #16 and everything is going along smoothly, i had my midwife appointment this week and his growth is still just above the middle line which is great and my BP is fine i've always had low blood pressure so i've been lucky to never have any problems with it. She checked his position and as i thought he has gone back to being breech so i've been trying some different excerises to try to get him to turn but hes just not budging, however, she did say he's got about 4 weeks to go head down and if he hasnt then they will try to turn him round which i really don't want because ive heard it's very painful but given the choice between  that and a c section then i will go for trying to turn him. The midwife did find this funny on my notes

she said she had never seen one with so many children on it she was amazed. My flour craving is just getting silly i wake up in the morning and i just want to eat flour lol i can't get enough of it but im trying not to eat as much because im not sure if it's causing my restless legs to be even worse because im really suffering with it and no matter what i try nothing is working. Today i've been walking round like a zomby because i didn't get to sleep till about 2.30 then Josh woke up at 6.45 so i had just a few hours sleep and it's starting to catch up with me, i've had my grumpy tired head on today, the children have been loving feeling him kicking and Luke sat for ages the other night poking Casper and watching him kick him back it was lovely then max was sat outside in the sunshine with me and he was giving Casper lot's of kisses and kept saying when you coming out Casper and singing him nursery rhymes one things for sure he's going to be so loved when he's finally here we all can't wait to meet him here is a picture of little Max and Aimee giving him a kiss it was so sweet

Planning our 20th wedding anniversary get away!

On the 26th September 1992 i married the man of my dreams i was just 17 and Noel was 21 never did i dream that 20 years on we would have 15 nearly 16 children and our first grandchild would be on the way. In February of this year we decided that we really wanted to renew our wedding vows we didn't know where  but just knew that we wanted to do it later on in the year, then we found out i was pregnant so it meant that we would be aiming for the beginning of December so we have been trying to plan it for months now and there have been times when i've thought it's just not going to happen but this last month we have been researching like crazy and have short listed a few destinations which are:-
Florida
Mexico
Cuba
Dubia
And the Dominican Republic we have now finally decided on where we will be going to renew our vows all i will say is it's one of those destinations but my lips are going to remain tightly sealed well that's the plan anyway let's just see if i can manage it but it's just perfect for us all and i cant wait to do it all over again and especially with all of our children and our new grandaughter to celebrate it with us i just know it's going to be such an amazing day and one that we will all never forget the children are all so excited and Ellie,Aimee and Josh keep saying when are you getting married again mummy the girls have been looking at dresses that they really like so we are going to be busy with all the planning now and dress buying and getting the suits for the boy's im so excited.

Going on holiday with so many children

A lot of people ask us how we manage to go away with so many children, and how we managed to do the packing for a family holiday, so thought i would go into how we manage it.

When we decided to go on our family holiday it takes quite a bit of planning and a lot of organisation, we will usually go away in the last few weeks of the 6 weeks holiday because we have found that they are by far the cheaper weeks to go, and if we are flying then we will usually be stalking the flight prices for a good few weeks before we book because they do go up and down a lot in price, and when they are at there lowest we will book them, but we never book them in one big booking because that will usually end up costing us up to ££££ more so we book them in block bookings of no more than 5 because the first few seats are usually quite heavily discounted we have found that quite often it really isn't worth going with a low cost airline because the added costs are so high especially when you have a big family.

When we are booking the accommodation we do this through the hotel because if we go through a travel company we would end up paying so much more so when we have found the accommodation we want to go to we will usually email the hotel and we always ask for a discount which usually does knock off a lot of money so it's deffinately worth been a bit cheeky they can only say no so you've got nothing to loose by asking we worked out that if we went through a travel agent rather than doing it the way we do a family holiday could cost us up to £3000 more which is a LOT of money, i think that when you have a big family you are always looking for ways to save money so it does involve a lot of researching and is very time consuming but worth it in the end.

So packing for all my brood starts at least 5 weeks before we are due to go i will do all of the washing drying and ironing of the summer clothes in blocks,  i will do 4 of the childrens clothes in one go and put them in big bags with there names on them which makes it so much easier to unpack when we get there but does take me weeks to do it  we have cut back on the amount of clothes we take now and have found that the sunsafe suites are really good for them to wear all day around the pool or beach so cuts out the amount of clothes that we were going through everyday and i always make sure that we take enough baby milk and nappies because we use disposable ones when we go away just because it's so much easier than taking their cloth nappies and having to wash them when we are away but we have found that nappies abroad are more than double what you would pay in this country so it's always worth making sure you have enough to get you through your holiday and that's it simple as that.

Weekly pregnancy update!

I'm now 31 week's with #16 he's been a little monkey this week and not been moving as much as he normally does which really worried me on Thursday but i have realised that he has started moving a lot during the night i only know this because i can't sleep at all and i'm suffering with restless legs which is driving me insane because i'm not able to go to sleep before 3am and then i'm getting woken up by the little ones at 7 so i'm not getting a lot of sleep at all but suppose it's good practice for when he's here and my carpel tunnel is getting a lot worse and is now quite painful.
I have got my midwife appointment next week so will find out if he's still head down which i'm thinking he's gone back to breech because of where i'm feeling the kicks from him they're really low down and not a lot of movement up the top of my bump.
We are planning to do the nursery maybe next weekend depending on how i'm feeling. We have ordered all the nursery furniture but are just waiting on the changing unit coming then we can get started and i've just washed all of his clothes today ready for his arrival.
We also have a meeting lined up with the health board next week to talk about the filming at the hospital which we are hoping they say yes to but we will just have to wait and see how it goes so next week is set to be quite a busy week but i can't wait to get started on the nursery.
Sophie is now 35 week's pregnant and has now finished work so is just taking it easy. She had her midwife appointment on Wednesday and all is great, the baby's head is now starting to drop so it's not going to be long before she's here only 5 more weeks to go i can't believe how fast it's gone for both of us.

I think my bump is taking over Sophie's tiny bump x

Back to reality!!

Well this week has been the first week back off holiday and the first week of the school holidays at home with the children and it's been none stop. We got back on Saturday morning and managed to get some sleep until dinner time then there was the unloading of the van and me sorting out all the washing and wow was there some washing!

- This is the wash pile that i have just managed to get through because on Monday the tumble dryer decided that it was not happy with all the washing and it gave up on me which is so typical when you really really need it to work it breaks and then to top it off the repair company said that they couldn't come out to fix it until Thursday by which time i had nearly done it so i've been very busy.
So Monday came and Noel went back to work and the boy's started there play fighting which always ends in tears so Monday was not a good day and i just wished we were back on a beach again but nope i was back to reality with a bang. Thankfully the rest of the week did get better and the weather has been really nice so we have been able to get out but how soon you forget you have even been on holiday when your back to the day to day running of this house it's just been so constant with washing, ironing and tidying up not to mention my food bill has been huge all they seem to do is eat! I have absolutely no idea where they put it all every time i turn around Jack seems to have toast in his hand and the amount of times i have caught Josh scaling the fridge to get the juice and cereal you wouldn't believe how many ways there is to climb that fridge it amuses everyone that sees it.

Filming for 16 kids and counting!!
We have had this week off so it's been so nice to get a break from the constant filming schedule and catch our breath because things have been very hectic but this week we have been offered another programme just after the filming for this one has finished which was a total surprise but it seems like a really good thing to do so where going to commit to it so it looks like we will be constantly filming now up until January with the filming of some pretty amazing and special things that i'm not allowed to go into so you will all just have to wait and see.
So roll on next week x

How our family has grow

I thought i would write a post about our family as im going to be talking about the children a lot so here goes, this could be a long one.
In 1987 me and Noel started our relationship i was just 13 and he was 16 i suppose you could say we were childhood sweethearts. In 1988 we discovered that i was pregnant and what a massive shock it was but i knew that no matter what we were going through with the pregnancy and so Christopher arrived on the 7th May 1989 at 12.47pm after a long labour of 23 hours he weighed in at 6lb 3oz and he was just gorgeous. Being a young mum and still at school was tough but we had the support of both our families so that made it easier i carried on at school and my mum looked after Chris for us and when i left school we were offered our first council house so we moved in together i loved being a mum so much that when we found out we were expecting Sophie we were over the moon and she arrived on the 13th December 1993 weighing 6lb 14oz, it was a very quick labour and i nearly delivered her in the lift when it got stuck they had just changed over hospitals that night so everything was still in boxes so it was all a bit crazy with midwives running around like headless chickens but it all went smoothly and she was the second baby to be delivered in the new maternity unit i will never forget that night. Then along came Chloe on the 31st July 1995, she weighed in at 7lb 2oz she was not such an easy baby as she suffered with really bad colic that you would have thought would have put us off having anymore and to this day i still have to keep reminding her of this fact. Then along came Jack on the 9th April 1997 weighing in at 7lb 6oz and he was a very easy baby compared to Chloe so chilled out and still is. Then came Daniel our little suprise! he arrived on the 3rd March 1999 and weighed 6lb 8oz i was in slow labour with him for 3 long days but when he did finally decide to come he was very quick and such an easy baby too he arrived just 2 weeks after we bought our Bakery so things were quite hectic. Then came Luke, he arrived on the 1st October 2000 after being in a stop and start labour for 2 days, he was a very easy baby aswell and then came our suprise Millie i found out i was pregnant with her just 7 weeks after the arrival of Luke and i really did wonder how we would cope but soon got my head around it and she arrived on the 29th August 2001 and weighed 8lb 3oz it's so nice to have them really close together and they are both in the same year at school so people think they are twins. Then came Katie, she arrived on the 14th November 2002 and she was my super fast labour and she wasnt hanging around! I went into labour at 7 in the morning and Noel was at work, i phoned him and said you better come home im in labour so he said ok im just putting the buns in the oven then i will be home in about an hour so i got off the phone and my waters went, i honestly thought i was going to have her there and then so phoned him back screaming for him to hurry up. He came home and we set off to the hospital and on the way he said to me "i've got to put petrol in" well omg i was screaming for him to just get me to hospital but nope he stopped to put it in with me trying not to push in the car lol we got to the hospital and all the midwives came running out and i couldnt get out of the car till she said well you can only have gas and air if you get out of the car so that was it i shot out and as soon as i got into the delivery room she was born they couldnt believe how quick and easy she was because she was back to back she weighed in at a whopping 9lb 3oz she was huge but i said i never want to ever go through that with no pain relief again so then came James who arrived on the 17th October 2003 he was induced because of Katie being so fast and it was such a relief to be in hospital with pain relief. After James we thought our family was complete and we had outgrown our 5 bedroom house but 10 months later we found we wanted to add to our family so decided to put our house up for sale and move to somewhere bigger. We were so lucky we sold quickly and the house of our dreams had just come on the market so we bought it and moved in. 6 weeks later we then found out we were having Ellie she arrived on the 6th May 2005 and weighed 7lb 2oz she was a very good baby then we found out we were pregnant with Aimee who arrived on the 21st April 2006 and weighed 8lb 6oz then along came Josh he arrived on the 3rd July 2007 and weighed 8lb 2oz then along came Max he arrived on the 11th December 2008 and he weighed 7lb 2oz he was our bakers dozen. Then along came Tillie she arrived on the 2nd May 2010 and weighed 7lb 6oz. We then found out we were expecting again in october 2010 which we were over the moon about but the when we went for our 12 week scan we were told that we had had a mmc we had lost our little bean, i've never felt so broken in my life so i went in for the treatment on boxing day needless to say that was the worst christmas ever for us but in february 2011 we found out we were expecting Oscar the first 12 weeks were tough and such a worry but after the scan we did start to relax and he arrived on the 22nd October 2011 and weighed 7lb 3oz he is such an easy baby and very laid back and chilled out and we are now expecting our new addition he is due to join our family on the 7th October but should be here at the end of september. wow that was a long one!