Family Values – Part 4

August 12th 2008

At about 6am in the morning, Ellie and Kyla came wondering into their parents bedroom, useless ran behind the girls and jumped up on the bed licking Archie's face until he woke.

"Oh useless stop it, get off!" Archie yelled as Lexie stirred next to him.

"Morning my wee birthday girls" Lexie announced as Archie pulled each one up onto the bed.

"Mummy" Ellie sung and kissed Lexie and then cuddled down with her under the covers.

"Daddy let me come in too" Kyla asked sitting on Archie's stomach.

"What do you say?" Archie replied

"Please" Kyla responded as she joined her parents and sister in bed.

"Mummy don't go to sleep" Ellie wined as Lexie shut her eyes again.

"Ellie mummy didn't get much sleep last night because your wee brother or sister was kicking up a storm in my belly" Lexie replied not opening her eyes.

"Come on lets have a cuddle" Archie suggested as the four cuddled down in the covers.

"Grandma!" Ellie and Kyla yelled in unison as they ran into the family room in their matching pyjamas.

"Happy birthday my darlings" Molly replied bending down to catch their hugs.

"Right presents!" Archie announced as he produced two piles of presents infront of the girls.

Lexie took a seat and wiggled about to get comfortable as Archie and Molly helped the girls unwrap there presents.

"Hello" Paul's voice came from the hall.

"In here" Lexie yelled back as Paul and Isobel appeared at the doorway with Livia.

"Livia!" The girls yelled in unison again and ran up to their cousin nearly knocking her over as Livia giggled then joined the girls by the stack of presents.

"Happy birthday Ellie, happy birthday Kyla" Paul and Isobel went over to kiss their nieces and hand them more presents.

"My goodness! Look at the time, I must go get ready" Molly stated quickly hurrying off as Ellie and Kyla began to play with their new toys.

Molly arrived at the station awaiting her daughter and granddaughters arrival. As the train pulled up into the station a door opened and a young girl stepped out. With her long brown hair and familiar structure, it reminded Molly of Lizzie as a young girl. But as the little girl turned, Molly could see it was Martha.

"Grandma!" Martha shouted and started to run towards Molly.

Lizzie stepped off the train struggling with two suitcases. "Martha Macdonald, get back here now and help your mother" Lizzie shouted

Martha turned on her heals and ran back to help her mother. "Coming mummy" she yelled back at Lizzie.

Martha took her teddy bear from Lizzie and her small backpack and put it on her back, then took off running to Molly again as Lizzie just laughed.

"Is that my wee Martha Macdonald? All grown up?" Molly asked Martha as she reached her and gave her a big hug.

"Yes Grandma, I'm eight now!" Martha smiled proudly.

"Eight, wow!" Molly replied looking up as Lizzie approached them.

"Mummy" Lizzie smiled as she put her suitcase down and hugged Molly

"Lizzie, you look well" Molly replied

"Thanks, so do you. I take it everything is all right at the house with Archie and Lexie?" Lizzie asked

"Yes things are fine, everyone's happy" Molly answered

"Good, Good, right let's get back so I can see them wee nieces of mine!" Lizzie replied excitedly as they all got into Molly's car.

Duncan stood back impressed at the bouncy castle he had just plugged in.

"Duncan, do you want to start getting some of this soft play stuff out" Golly called to him.

The wildlife activity centre had recently had an extra hall built on, and Lexie had decided to set up a play centre for under 5's to come and play for mornings. That way mothers could socialise and so could the kids. They had all play equipment in the theme of animals so that it would also help children to learn.

"Hello" Jess called out as her and Ewan bought in trays of food to the kitchen area of the hall.

"Hey sweetheart" Duncan called back as he pulled out a 'snake' slide and placed it on the mat.

"Jess, I'm just going back to the pick up to get the rest of the food" Ewan called to her as Jess wondered over to Duncan to help him.

"How's it all going?" Jess asked

"Great, I think I'm done with all the play stuff" Duncan replied as Lexie and Archie entered the hall with Ellie and Kyla running infront.

"Jess! Come on the bouncy castle" Ellie yelled tugging at Jess's hand.

"Ellie I think I'm a bit big for the bouncy castle" Jess replied laughing as Duncan and Kyla were already bouncing away on it.

"Pleaseee" Ellie begged as Jess gave into her puppy dog eyes and cute smile as they joined Duncan and Kyla on the bouncy castle.

A while after, the guests started arriving. Lexie looked on at her daughters proudly. Ellie had a ponytail and was wearing a pink flowery dress and Kyla had her hair down and was in jeans and a pretty top. She had made sure as Melissa was coming today to make them look different.

Melissa soon arrived and two neatly presented blonde twins appeared infront of her, each holding a gift. Melissa directed them towards Lexie.

"Lexie, this is Jennifer" Melissa pointed out, Lexie could see infront of her, a little girl with a blonde side fringe and long blonde hair. She was dressed in a blue dress similar to Ellie's.

"…And this is Elizabeth" Melissa continued placing her hands on her other daughter's shoulders. Elizabeth had shoulder length hair and no fringe. She wore a pink skirt and a white top.

"Lovely to meet you, oh Melissa, they are gorgeous" Lexie commented.

"Girls, hand Lexie Ellie's and Kyla's presents" Melissa instructed as each girl handed Lexie the gift they were holding.

"Thank you…Ellie, Kyla come here a minute please" Lexie yelled across to the girls.

Two energetic four years olds came racing over, red faced and laughing.

"Girls…. Ellie, Kyla, I want you to meet Jennifer and Elizabeth" Lexie announced

"Hi" Ellie replied, as Kyla cowered shyly behind her.

"Ellie, Kyla, why don't you take the girls to play?" Lexie suggested

"Come on" Ellie replied as she started to run off with Kyla close behind her, as Jennifer and Elizabeth looked up to their mother for approval before running off.

Lexie looked on happily, as the two sets of twins seemed to be getting along.

"So Melissa, come and sit with us and meet some people" Lexie suggested

"My husband Ian will be along soon, but he'll find me, why not" Melissa smiled.

Suddenly Lexie heard children crying and ran over to help two boys who had banged heads. While Archie ran to stop an argument between two children over a push-bike.

"I'll get myself a seat then" Melissa muttered to herself.

"Food time everyone!" Lexie shouted over the laughing and screaming kids. As she shouted 25 hyperactive kids came running her way and she quickly dodged out the way as Archie and the others helped the children into seats around the table as Ewan and Jess bought out the food.

All the children sat happily eating a selection of chicken nuggets, sausages, fruit and cucumber and crisps. While Lexie poured out Orange or Blackcurrant juice to the children.

"Well things are going all right" Archie stated to Lexie as they sat back to watch Ellie and Kyla eating and chatting away with their friends.

"Yeah, it's been good" Lexie smiled happily.

"Mum, I spilt my drink" Ellie yelled to Lexie as she quickly grabbed a cloth and ran over to clean up the mess.

"You know Lexie shouldn't be running around like at 7 months pregnant" Melissa mentioned to Archie with a cunning smile as he quickly ran over to Lexie and pulled her up off the floor insisting she go sit down.

Lexie looked up to see Melissa give her a wave and instantly knew she had something to do with Archie rushing over. Just then a man entered the hall and gave everyone a huge smile.

Lexie walked over to greet him.

"Hello, I'm Lexie Macdonald" Lexie announced holding out her hand to shake with the man.

"Nice to meet you Lexie, I'm Ian Ashford, the twins dad" Ian replied.

A smile appeared on Lexie's face as she noticed Ian had referred to his girls as 'the twins'

"Oh Ian nice to meet you too, the girls have had a lot of fun playing with the other children today" Lexie answered as Melissa came up to meet them.

"Hello sweetheart" Ian said kissing Melissa.

"Hello Darling, how was your day?" Melissa replied

"Went splendidly, we had a new business deal and I got a lot of good feed-back" Ian answered as Melissa smiled proudly, as Lexie cowered. What was this? Stepford wives?

In fact Melissa did remind her of one of the wives out of the film which had come out a few years back. Melissa seemed to perfect, as did her children. Yet something about Ian shone away from Melissa.

"My baby girls!" Ian shouted as Jennifer and Elizabeth ran over to him and he scooped them up and cuddled them.

"Ian, you'll ruin their clothes like that" Melissa ran after him.

Lexie sighed, 'poor man' she thought. As she went to go help clear up the table.

"Well that was exhausting" Lexie sighed sitting down in the chair back at the house as the girls played happily on the floor.

"Don't think its over yet, I don't know if you've forgotten but it is our wedding anniversary, our 6th wedding anniversary…and I want to do something special…in fact I've got something special. Lizzie and mother are going to look after the girls, and we are going to take a stroll along the beach" Archie insisted.

"What?" Lexie laughed, as Archie helped her up.

"Bye girls" Archie called

"Bye Daddy" they replied not even looking up from their new toys.

Duncan quickly finished lighting the lights along the beach ready for Archie's surprise, and ran to the sheltered hut at the end and met Ewan with the tray of food.

"Everything sorted?" Ewan asked as he placed the food done.

"Aye, everything's done" Duncan replied

"Good, right mate we better get outa here" Ewan answered as the two men ran off into the trees.

"Oh my goodness Archie, candles!" Lexie mentioned surprised as they walked hand in hand along the beach lit by tall candlesticks. The light flicked along the water and danced images as Archie and Lexie spent the moment together, peacefully.

"Arch this is beautiful" Lexie commented stopping and giving him a kiss.

"Still got it after six years" Archie laughed "Come on, this isn't all"

"There's more?" Lexie asked surprised

Archie led Lexie along to the shelter where food and drink awaited them. On the warm August evening it was beautiful and pleasant. The couple sat down and Archie poured them each a glass of wine, Lexie drank just the one glass seeing as she was still pregnant but the one glass wouldn't hurt.

"Now we just have to wait for father to send his fireworks" Archie stated as they both waited for the yearly event of the meteor shower.

"Arch, I love you so much, I just want you to know that ok" Lexie mentioned turning to Archie.

"Lex I know that" Archie replied smiling "And I love you too, more than anything in the world"

Just then the meteor shower started, and Archie and Lexie sat back and thought of that day six years ago that brought them together in their special ceremony.

Archie was reminded of the day four years ago, when they had argued then suddenly Archie had nearly lost his wife and his daughters. It had scared him, and made him realise how much he took Lexie for guaranteed.

Sitting here now, together with each other and their unborn child. Everything felt special, and for once, life was really good.