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!

Biking in the snow

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During the weekend before Easter I went up to Scotland to try out one of the trail centres up there. The trip had been arranged for some time as me and Dan wanted to make sure we got the nicer weather of spring. Obviously we didn’t get the weather we wanted… but we gave it a go anyway.

The trail centre is in Glentress Forest and promises some of the best mountain biking in the UK. We arrived to find a relatively clear car park but the snow on the trails was already 15cm deep and only got deeper as we climbed higher.

Dan climbs through the forest

Dan climbs through the forest

The going was OK if you stuck to the foot wide channel that some other riders had carved into the snow. Deviating from the track meant a battle with the handlebar and pedals to get out of the deeper snow (before you had to plunge your foot into a drift). Once we reached the height of the Buzzards car park it was difficult to get much higher. We had a quick go on “Berm baby berm” but most of the berms were un-rideable and had to be waded round.

Wrapped up warm

Wrapped up warm

At least the run down from Buzzard’s to the car was good – so good that we repeated the climb so that we could do it again. I had a good time but I look forward to returning to the trails in better weather one day.

Makes a good bike stand though

Makes a good bike stand though

Samuel’s jokes

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Samuel has been telling quite a few jokes lately. They seem to revolve around the theme of “Why did the <thing> walk?” and the answer is often related to whatever he is looking at or has just happened.

Sam jokes from the past include:

What happens if you have doughnuts with chocolate on top? You’ll get poorly.
Why does a cow walk through water? To get to his hay.
What do you call a firework that laughs? A bachooaa.

And all these were told just now (as I was writing this post):

Why did the sky walk? To get down from the Sun and the clouds to find a picture of the baby.
Why did the Sun walk? To fix the wires.
Why did the computer walk? To put on the computer.
Why did the salt walk? To move the mouse on the computer.

The blog now lives at Tea Towers

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You may not have noticed but the site looks a little bit different to how it did a month ago. I’ve been making some changes to the way the website is hosted. Until recently the files that make up this website were stored on a server in America… but now they’re on a tiny computer under the TV in our lounge. Yep, the whole site is now hosted on a Raspberry Pi.

I’ve included a picture of it below. You shouldn’t notice any real difference but I enjoyed making the changes – it was an interesting project.IMG_1537

 

Christmas time

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We decided that we’d start Christmas today at Tea Towers. The Christmas tree is up and decorated and we’re hoping that our ingenious move of putting the tree on a table will prevent little hands from interfering.

Jessica is going to redistribute the decorations this evening as Samuel favoured the approach of putting all his decorations on one branch. It’s not immediately evident in the picture but Sam decorated the lower right.

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 🙂

 

Exploring

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At the weekend I finally took the opportunity to explore the area on my bike. Sale Water Park is nearby so I rode up there and did a lap of the lake – it’s a nice area to walk around and the paths are buggy friendly so if you visit us we might take you up there.

Ideally I’d like to explore further West along the Mersey (in picture) but that’ll have to wait until I next find time to get on the bike.

Mersey tributary

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!

 

Proper food!

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After two trips to Ikea (left the legs in the trolley first time) we have a new high chair for Emily. She is now ready to start weaning and try her first ‘solid food’.

Emily impatiently awaits her food

Emily really enjoyed her new food which was quite a contrast to our experience with Samuel 3 years ago. Now if Emily can just master keeping the food in her mouth, meal times will be a lot cleaner.

Yummy

Quicker Mummy - I'm hungry!

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.