Author Archives: Jessica

Birthday BBQ

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We had a really lovely day for our Tea Towers summer BBQ – can’t quite believe just how sunny it has been here over the last week.

The gazebo (once we managed to get it up) did a great job of keeping the sun off those enjoying the garden. We also had the paddling pool out which was very, very popular with all the kids who spend hours splashing and jumping in and out of it. Rich did a great job with cooking up burgers, sausages and tasty kebabs on the BBQ while various friends helped out with the washing up in the kitchen.

Thanks to all the friend who came and made the day so much fun.

Number of candles does not equal age.

We’ve got some lovely photos of the kids all jumping about in the pool – so if you want to have copies of any photos we have of your little ones just let me know and I’ll email them out to you.

Vegetable Garden

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Veg patch

Yummy veg

We’ve got a lot of lovely veg growing in our new raised beds now so I thought I would show it all off to you…

The green goodness you can see in the photo is the sugar snap peas, cauliflower, lettuce & tomatoes. Planted in a few other places round the garden we also have rosemary, thyme, coriander, basil, spring onions and pak choi – all so yummy I can’t wait 🙂

Emily update

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DSC_4917Just a very quick update on Emily’s progress…

Emily is starting to say a few more words, as well as her much used ‘daddy’ we also have no, bye, quack and bis-cuit.

Though Emily isn’t walking properly yet we do have plenty of different variations of crawling & walking about on her knees. She can also climb pretty well – the minute you’ve forgotten to close the stair gate she is halfway up before you can blink, she can also use stools and boxes to climb up onto the coffee table.

 

Summary – we have one cute and very mischievous 1.5 year old 🙂

Gardening at Tea Towers

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Rich strikes mud

Rich strikes mud

Spring finally seems to have sprung here in sunny Manchester – and crazed with all the excitement about finally seeing the sun we decided to have a go at growing some of our own vegetables.

The first step towards accomplishing this aim was to mark out where we wanted to put in our exciting new ‘raised beds’ and then dig up the turf in those spots.
While we had been busy doing this Sam had been occupied with watering the flowers so hadn’t really been paying attention to what was going on. When he saw that his daddy had dug a big hole out of the grass he dropped his watering can in shock.

whacketty whack whack

whacketty whack whack

After much digging and turf removing both Rich and myself were worn out. Time to call in the professionals we thought.

Very kindly Eric had already put together some simple frames for our raised bed and brought them round to hopefully fit our recently dug holes.

Phase II involves us visiting a gardening centre and doing a bit of shopping for hardy vegetables so hopefully we’ll have some exciting ‘veg growing’ photos to show you all soon…

Easter break

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Bunny Emily

Little bunny ears

We are just back from a lovely relaxing weekend break with ‘aunty Cara & uncle Nick’. We all seem to have been under the weather for the last couple of weeks – Tea Towers has been the home of plenty of runny noses and sore throats. So we almost didn’t make it down to sunny Baldock for our much anticipated Easter weekend. Rich who has been the most ill out of us all did manage to recover enough to drive us safely there on Friday evening.

Thankfully once we arrived everything became much easier and both Rich and I managed to get a lot more rest as Cara and Nick helped look after us and the little monkeys. Sam and Emily were delighted to have two extra adults to play with – Sam especially was in his element bossing uncle Nick about and chattering non stop.

Sam 1

State of the art ‘cardboard’ car

On Easter Sunday we did a trip out to the local swimming pool – Emily didn’t think much of the water temperature so she came out quite quick and sat with Rich and myself in the cafe. Sam loved being in the pool – he really enjoys the water now and hopefully when we get to Centre Parcs this summer he’ll love that too! In the afternoon the Easter bunny visited and left some chocolate eggs around the house for Sam to find as well as some very cute ears for Emily to model 🙂

Not only was there much chocolate there was also a large cardboard box to play with – with much help from Cara and Nick a beautiful new car was made and was much enjoyed by Sam.

Thank you ever so much for having us Cara & Nick, we all had a lovely time and it was so good of you to look after us so well!

Hooray for Summer time!

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Roarrrr!

The summer finally seems to have arrived here at Tea Towers, Sam has finished at his lovely preschool and is now home with me until he starts at his new nursery in September. So in an effort to stay sane while he is home I’ve been trying to have somewhere to visit or have guests come round here every day.

We’ve been out to meet up with friends quite a lot which has been really lovely. While out in Altrincham one morning to have drinks and a chat with some of our friends we noticed a face painting stall being set up… it turned out they were doing free face painting to celebrate the start of the Olympics so Sam became their first customer. He asked to be painted like a lion but I have a feeling he really meant to be a tiger as he was wondering where his stripes were. However he was very happy with his new look and spent the next half hour roaring very loudly at any unsuspecting passersby.

The weather has also been nice enough to dust off our paddling pool and have it out in the garden. Sam has been beside himself with excitement at the thought of having a whole paddling pool of water to jump about in. When he sees it being filled up he dashes about the house to find suitable waterproof toys to throw into it.

Emily also likes having a good splash in the paddling pool. After she had gotten over the initial shock of being put into cold water instead of her usual warm bath she had a great time splashing and chewing on any toys that floated within her reach. So with all this outside water play our lovely garden has had plenty of water to keep it going over these unusually warm and sunny days, that and Sam being a very keen waterer… he will quite happily wander about the garden with a watering can – however he is a bit haphazard in his methods so some plants get left while others look slightly drowned from all the attention.

Sam seems to be going through a development spurt at the moment – each day he seems to surprise me with being able to do something new. I’ve only just realised that he can do colouring in  – mostly when he gets hold of a crayon he spends 2 minutes having a quick scribble and then he wants to do something else… so imagine my surprise when he sat down with a print out of his favourite Cbeebies character and spent half an hour carefully colouring it all in neatly and within the lines.

He also seems to be quite good at helping me with a few household bits and bobs. He was very excited when I said he could help me make jam tarts today and was so happy carefully spooning jam into each of the prepared pastry circles. They’ve since come out of the oven and we’ll be sharing them after our tea tonight – yum!

Hope you are all doing well and having a lovely summer too 🙂

 

Kiddie progress

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Sam 'writes' his name

Somehow another 3 months have dashed past and though there has been tons of news and photos to share I’ve just not had a spare moment to sit down and let you all know about them. Well – Rich has reminded me about my much neglected blog here so I am going to do a quick post now 🙂

This photo of Sam was taken on Friday (18th) and I think is the first time Sam has ‘written’ his name by himself. Yes I know they are just foam letters but Sam went and got them without help and then arranged them by himself so I think it counts 🙂 So I am one very excited Jess and I am now trying to get him to learn how to spell mum…

Sam is getting tall – he is still slim as anything and all his trousers need help staying up, but he is definitely getting taller and looking more like ‘big’ boy. His current loves include his new scooter that he scoots away on pretty quick now as well as a rather annoying program on Cbeebies called “Tree Fu Tom”. Pre school is still going well and Sam loves being there, which is great because in September he is going to be starting ‘proper’ nursery at the local primary school and hopefully his time in pre school makes this an easy transition for him. At least he is only going in to nursery for afternoons as I would miss him too much if he was starting full time – he may drive me crazy sometimes with the constant chatter but he is lovely 🙂

Emily - looking bigger each day

Emily is also getting big – much too fast, I can’t believe that she is almost 8 months old already. Emily’s current loves include her daddy (her head always swings round whenever she hears his voice and then she will keep him in sight until he rewards her with some sort of daftness), blowing raspberries and her polar bear teddy that sleeps in her cot with her and has usually moved closer to her when we go and check on her in the night.

I’m not sure how heavy Emily currently is as I’ve missed her regular weigh in slot a couple of times recently – she is still wearing size 3-6 month clothing though they are fast becoming a little tight. Emily is also having three meals a day with us – she enjoys a mix of baby mush as well as a selection of finger food (you should see her munch her way through a breadstick – very impressive!) and makes a terrible mess while she does it.

Rich’s news – Rich has a new bicycle that he has been riding too and from work on, so will be super-fit in no time 🙂

Jessica’s news – Jess is finally doing driving lessons! I’m 3 lessons in and I’m getting more confident all the time!

Hope all is well with my lovely family & friends – so sorry for being a terrible blogger, I’ll try harder I promise!

 

Growing up fast

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Our pretty little girl

Little Emily is very almost 5 months old now – the time has flown past, I’ve never know my life to move so quickly before. So before she goes and gets any bigger I thought I should post a quick photo of her here and let you know how she is doing.

Paint time

Emily is really good at flashing her huge smile at people. She is still wearing her 0-3 month clothing but is growing fine – today she weighed in at 11 lb 11 oz. Emily has just started grabbing objects and shaking rattles, and also likes to squeal  in a very high pitch. She is also just starting to get ticklish and will chuckle when you nibble her ribs 🙂

Sam is also doing really well. He goes to pre-school 4 times a week and loves his time playing there. All the staff at the pre-school think he is wonderful and I regularly get told how polite and well behaved he is. Sam is really into making puzzles at the moment as well as spending quite a bit of time playing with his kitchen and providing us all with ‘tea’ (both the drink and the evening meal) regularly. Sam also seems to be a bit more interested in painting and drawing so hopefully I’ll be able to convince him to start making pictures and cards for you all.

Thanks for checking in on us – I will try and be much better about posting here this year, now we are pretty settled in to our new Northern home I want to be able to share our family photos with you all more regularly.

Sam’s photo tour

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Sorry for the lack of posting recently – life has been surprisingly busy without anything much to report about. Because the house is pretty much looking how we want it now I thought it high time I took you on a tour of it… however Sam got hold of the camera so this has now become a tour from Sam’s perspective.

What a nice shiny floor we have here in the hallway

This is what our stairs look like, they are good for bumping down on your bottom

This is where mummy & daddy store their things - I also sit next to this when I'm playing hide and seek

This is our table and our computer - I'm not supposed to play with this

This is a close up of our fireplace - isn't it pretty

Guess what this is...

Yup - it's my lovely new kitchen!

Hi mummy - where are we now?

Ooooh - lot's of pots & pans

Ahh - it's the Kitchen, did I surprise you daddy?

Last room - the lounge

Sam hopes you enjoyed his tour!

 

Now I’m off to recharge the camera battery, perhaps when it has some more power I’ll let Sam take you on another tour upstairs 🙂

 

Halloween fun

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Tiny mummy

Last weekend we were invited over to a friend’s flat in Manchester for a lovely Halloween party with their 3 year old Ivy as well as another couple we know who have another 3 year old called Eleanor. The kids all got to wear costumes, little Ivy had requested to be a pink alien so her mum had made her a fantastic outfit out of pink fun fur fabric. Eleanor got dressed as a corpse bride and did a great job on her own face paint by surrounding her mouth with red lines which looked pretty scary.

Sticky Sam

Sam also had a go with the face paint but he wanted to try all the colours and ended up looking quite spotty. Sam was supposed to be a bat/batman, I had sewn some bat wings to the back of his batman tshirt and borrowed a batman mask from a friend, but because the mask only stayed on for 2 seconds and because Sam had done an interesting job with his face paints he didn’t look much like anything 🙁 Emily also wore fancy dress – we still had the ‘mummy’ baby grow that Sam was given for his first Halloween and Emily fitted it perfectly!

After we all had eaten plenty of tasty party food (including some fantastic red squiggly fairy cakes with eyes and bat shaped cookies) the kids then got to play party games. My favourite was where they all had to try and eat donuts which had been hung on a string without using their hands to help them. They all eventually got the idea and spent ages trying to get mouthfuls while us parents watched and laughed ourselves silly. Sam got covered in the orange icing that was on his donut – but because of his alternative face painting it wasn’t too noticeable. They then all had a go at bobbing for apples which at least ment they ate one healthy thing during the party!

We all had a really great time and Sam is already asking to attend more Halloween parties so I’ll have to start thinking of something exciting for next year.