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Samuel with Graffe

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We no longer say the PB word (whisper *pooh bear*) here at Tea Towers as we’ve had to separate Sam from his favourite night time companion recently. Sam has had little PB since he was only a few months old but as he is annoyingly only “surface washable” we’ve not been able to keep him as clean as we would like.

So last week I sent Rich out with Sam to see if they could find a suitable washable alternative and Sam came home clutching his new friend Giraffe (or Graffe if you want Sam’s version). Giraffe was an instant hit in the shop, Sam carried him all the way home and hasn’t really been separated from him since. Giraffe also ‘talks’, Sam will hold him up to you and say in a low growily voice something like “hello mummy” which always makes me smile 🙂

So now the problem is going to be getting hold of Giraffe for long enough to give him a spin in the washing machine…

Happy New Year!

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Samuel self portraitHappy New Year to all our Fuzzy Felt readers! Sorry that I was so bad at updating this blog last year, I’m going to try and post more regularly here in 2011 so be sure to keep checking back.

This year we are going to be selling Tea Towers and moving up to somewhere in Manchester (where we will rename our new home to Tea Towers). Because of this I’m going to try and catch up with all of my friends here so hopefully there will be lots of news and photos to share with you all.

Sam is as lovely as ever, he seems to be learning a new word every day and keeps coming up with new games to keep his mum and dad on their toes. Sam’s latest new skill is photography – the photo on the left is his first self portrait. After being shown how to aim the camera and push one of the buttons he was away and now I have about 40 close up photos of Sam as well as a number of photos of Thomas the tank engine, pooh bear, his new car and my foot.

Vrooom!

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Every day Sam seems to be picking up something new and in the last week we seem to be starting to get more attempts at talking. Sam can currently say Dadda, no, vroom and most recently – car. No mamma yet – not unless he is complaining when I get a ma ma ma ma type annoyed noise, but hopefully some day.

Sam loves cars. He loves the little cars that are part of his garage, he pushes these along surfaces and says vroom quietly to himself. He really loves the big Early Learning Centre cars that are at a number of the play groups that we go to, he can’t drive them forwards yet but he enjoys beeping the horn and walking it backwards through anything that is foolish enough to be behind him. So we really shouldn’t have been too surprised when he happily repeated ‘car’ to us the other day, and now it seems to be his favourite word.

Samuel also seems to be quite happy to watch the Grand Prix with his daddy which should be handy as we are going to be having it on a lot now that the season has started again and won’t be finishing until November. Maybe having Sam listening to the Grand Prix while he was still in my tummy started all this interest in cars for Sam – I just hope he doesn’t grow up wanting to drive formula 1 cars…

Blogging break

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Yikes – it’s been simply ages since I last posted! I’m very sorry loyal readers for not keeping you more up to date with the day to day happenings here at Tea Towers, I must try to do better. With all the changes that Rich has been working on to improve the look of the blog I thought it was high time that I did a new post before you all forgot about me.

Looking back at the blog it seems that my last post was back in August last year about our trip out to the Bluebell railway and since then Rich has been keeping you informed. In those 7 months much has happened and much has stayed the same. We’ve had Sam’s first Birthday, a trip out to Center Parcs, Christmas (and all the associated Christmas panic), Rich’s 30th as well as tons of Sam events like his first steps, first pair of shoes, first hair cut and lot’s of other new events that seem to happen almost daily.

Sam and I are still keeping ourselves mostly out of mischief and spend a lot of time visiting the nearby baby groups as well as socialising with other mums when we can. Today, for instance we went into town to get lunch out with a group of mums at Pizza Express. Sam enjoyed being in his high chair for the first hour, after which he just wanted to wander around the restaurant and see who he could get smiles from. He is as gorgeous as ever and still seems to charm everyone he meets.

Blog changes

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You may notice that the page has changed a little since you last visited. Me and Jessica have decided to combine our blogs so there is now a single place that you can visit to get news from both of us. I’ve been intending to make this change for a while and still have a few tweaks to make, but for now… enjoy.

Bluebell railway

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Steam train

Steam train

Last weekend we decided to take a trip to see the Bluebell railway near East Grinstead. We packed up a picnic lunch and made the slightly awkward (bus-train-bus) trip to Kingscote station where we boarded a steam train to Sheffield Park station. I’ve heard people discussing the railway before but wasn’t prepared for the scale of the project – there are three stations and at least three different trains running. You can see pictures from the visit in our picture gallery.

After arriving at Sheffield park station we found a picnic area where we had sandwiches (Sam had a jar of food) and fended off a bunch of determined ducks before setting off for the nearby National Trust park. I was a bit disappointed with the park as the waterfalls and cascades had all dried up for the summer 🙁 However, there were a lot of interesting trees and Jessica was excited to spot a Tea-van.

Choo chooo!

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Sam and RichTo help us celebrate the long awaited bank holiday weekend we decided that a trip out on a steam train would be just the thing so this morning we set off to find one.

Luckily there was just the thing running – the wonderful Bluebell Railway which uses a piece of track from East Grinstead through to Sheffield park. On this bit of track they run a number of steam engines which have a range of different carriages and services. We got a day pass ticket and went off on the line to Sheffield park and after a quick stop for lunch headed off to find the nearby Sheffield park garden.

The gardens are very lovely and impressively were the work of the famous landscaper ‘Capability’ Brown. We admired a number of views across a large waterlily covered lake to the beautiful (but unfortunately private) manor house which looked like it was straight from a film version of one of Jane Austen’s books. While wandering round the many paths we also happened upon a fantastic little tea van that was thoughtfully provided to keep the park visitors refreshed. Rich climbed one of the largest trees that I’ve possibly ever seen and also did a very good duck impression that I make me smile for some time to come.

After such excitements it was time to head back to catch the last train from Sheffield park to East Grinstead. More photos were taken of the trains and we also managed to secure a private booth to ourselves. Be sure to check out the lovely photos in the new and improved photo gallery.

Visiting Katie and Aedan

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Aedan and Sam looking cuteAfter hearing about how my friend Katie has really gotten into baking recently Sam and I decided it was high time we paid her and her gorgeous son Aedan a visit. Now that Sam and I seem to have longer journeys with the pushchair down to a fine art we will hopefully be making more effort to go visiting friends during the week.

Little Aedan is toddling around like a pro now and with his cute smile and pretty eyes is very good at getting into mischief and then charming his way out of it. Sam seemed to enjoy watching his antics and was happy to play with whatever toys Aedan found for him.

Sam also enjoyed the attention he received from Katie’s friendly dog Jupiter who did a good job of keeping us all well licked which Sam found good fun (me not so much…). We went out for a good walk with Jupiter plus another dog during which we managed to get the boys to sleep so when we got back we sat down to a nice cup of tea. Katie brought out some very tasty cakes that she had made just the other day and the pretty flowers on the top were almost too nice to bite into.

Thanks so much for having us Katie, we are sure to be back soon, especially if there is more baking going on 🙂

Sam’s weigh in

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Sam with CookieSam is delighted to announce that his current weight now is 9.20 kg (20 lb 4 oz).

His growth on the chart seems to now be completely ignoring any of the curves it should be following and is just steadily going up in more of a diagonal direction. However, as the health centre people seem happy with this then we are also pleased. I’m thinking that once Sam decides to perhaps try crawling somewhere for a change or failing that have a go at walking then his weight gain will slow down again.

More fun at Kelsey park

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Why hello Thea!

Why hello Thea!

Ah Kelsey park – how I do enjoy popping in to see you 🙂

Yup, yet again today I found myself visiting Kelsey park again, this time with my sister Thea, little Katie and Cara. The park was as lovely as ever and the weather was also pretty perfect for sitting out with a picnic. We treated ourselves to some food from M&S and had a good lunch before needing to visit the play park.

Katie had a good time meeting some of the other children (at one point climbing over another little girl in her attempt to scale the helter skelter without using the stairs) while Sam spent some time having a good swing. After Katie’s exertions in the park she needed a bit of a rest and it seemed that only Cara would do.

Thanks for spending the day with us Thea, Katie and Cara, Sam and I had a great time 🙂