Sophie's progress

Last weekend Sophie crawled for the first time, and also clapped her hands for the first time. We'll, attempted to clap. But it is very cute and she is practicing alot, so might even improve! Is she clapping all the time because she can? Because she thinks she is doing great things? Or because we give her a big cheer, smile and join in?

I guess that we'll need to start 'baby-proofing' the house. This morning she crawled from the kitchen to the front room, with only one rest stop. Even though standing is kind of new to her, she likes to challenge herself, by only holding on with one hand. or swapping which hand is holding on.

Mr Santa

William gave his first Christmas Concert today at nursery. The children had all been practicing the songs for weeks in preparation for todays gig. They were all amazingly cute, and for the most part very brave, dressed up in their costumes. I, along with about 50 other parents, recorded the show. Are you brave enough to perform in front of an audience of 50 fans, 30 video cameras and 20 cameras?

Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oxnqZNbp5s
Sorry that I haven't embedded the video, but when I do it only shows half of the screen for some reason unbeknown to me.


Ha ha ha funny face Santa.


And some post-gig seasonal nosh

December adventures

William’s room at nursery went on an excursion last week to see a puppet show. As parents were allowed to come along, and it happened to be on a day that I wasn’t working, Sophie and I joined him. It was great fun just getting to the school where the show was performed. All the kids wore fluorescent yellow jackets (so that we wouldn’t lose them!) and we all walked to the bus stop, to get the bus to the school. They looked so cute traipsing along!




You can see that we’ve had some frosty weather here, like most of the rest of the UK. This tree was covered with a very heavy frost and looked beautiful. It is on the corner of London Rd and Gypsy Lane (for those who know Oxford – mum and dad, this is where we sometimes picked you up from the airport bus). By the evening of the day after, however, it had warmed up 5 degrees and all the frost was gone! That is a good thing though, as I had been feeling a tinsy bit mean making the kids go to nursery on the back of the bicycle in -3oC weather.


Today Sophie was invited to her first 1st Birthday Party, were she had a ball playing with the (slightly) older kids toys, ate cake for the first time and enjoyed being the only girl at the party – she had her pick of 5 other one year olds.



Tomorrow we are having our housewarming, and so in preparation we bought this years Christmas tree (from the Oxford Sea Scouts). It ended up being a pretty large one (they weren’t getting smaller ones in until the day after and I couldn’t be bothered coming back). I would have loved to have made decorations like these below, but I have not time for such pleasures – so I bought these ones! We are putting up holly picked from our very own tree out the front of the house though. I like that.


And finally, William made a very tall tower out of duplo today, which he wanted me to record for prosterity. You can see Andrew making a paper snowflake in the background (my husband has many talents!).

8 and a half months old

Five days ago Sophie first pulled herself up to standing. Today she started cruising along the edge of the bed! Watch out everyone - here she comes! [Mum tells me that I walked at 9 months, so perhaps she has my genes in her legs]

This picture was taken by a professional photographer who came to a music group that Sophie and I attend. I know I am biased, but pretty cute. :)

A weekend in Brussels

Last weekend we had a lovely long weekend in Brussels, visiting Andrew's relatives. We quite like taking the train with the kids - it works well being able to walk when we need to and so they are much happier than if they'd been strapped into a seat in a car or on a plane. So we took the Eurostar across, and stayed with Richard, Carmen and Zoe. They have lots of parks nearby their apartment, so we could enjoy the Autumn colours and new play equipment. We also had the chance to catch up with Bethy and Plonkie.



As they don't celebrate Bonfire Night on the continent, we brought our own sparklers across with us. As it is dark at 6pm, you don't need to stay up late to play with them.

Three on a bike

Well, I'm back to work (part time) on Monday and so Sophie has started 3 days a week at William's nursery. How do we get two kids to nursery I hear you ask. Using our newly acquired family bike! It has an extended frame so that two seats fit on to it. Apparently an Italian car designer designed it many years ago. We'll be rugging the kids up well, as rain, sleet, snow or shine, this is the way they'll be getting to and from nursery. I wonder whether I'll be able to cycle them up the hill without having to get off and push?? Ah, it'll be good for me!

Back from the hiatus

We've moved house, had a big Summer holiday in France, Sophie has started eating solids and going to nursery 3 days a week. I'll skip over all of that for now, to give you some recent pictures and video footage of the kids.

August

More photos to share with you! Firstly the smallest – Sophie is 4 months old and getting stronger. She can happily sit up in a supported bumbo seat.



Sophie has progressed to sleeping in the big cot now – it makes her look much smaller all of a sudden. She is really happy in it, and it saves our backs from bending down quite as far. Of course, it does also take up a much larger chunk of our bedroom.



She is also enjoying spending more time on her front these days, and reaching for things. She can fairly reliably grab things with two hands and get them in her mouth now.



Now the oldest, and best at telling us what Sophie wants and what Sophie is thinking about (such an interpreter). William surprised me the other day by knowing exactly how to hold a guitar and play it – here is some footage. I guess that he has seen Andrew do it and that was enough.



William and I made play doh together last weekend. We both had lots of fun making it and it turned out well. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t get a photo of the great dragon that Andrew and William made with it but here are some shots of William making it and playing with it (“Still hot from saucepan Mummy”).



Although it looks like William will probably be on the short side in height, he obviously won’t take no for an answer, as he tells us daily that “I’m growing up (to) clouds”.

My friend Clare taught William a cheeky face a few months ago (thumbs in ears, hands wiggling, tongue sticking out and wiggling) which he thinks is hilarious and uses on lots of people. A few weeks ago he showed us a new face (?learnt from another kid at nursery) which I cal the 'scary face' - not that it deters him from using it on me all the time!


Finally, a picture of William and I eating ice creams in Brecon. Think that this is the first time we’ve ever given him a whole cone of his own to hold and eat – it disappeared within 60 seconds.

Milestones

A number of milestones have been reached recently:

Sophie can now roll over by herself, from her front to her back.
Jo can bath two children all by herself (a milestone which Sophie felt should be recognized by doing a squirting poo up her back, all the way to her neck! Great!).
William has done some very good jumping, both off the sofa into a pile of cushions, and into the pool (he goes underwater, then bobs up again and can swim to Andrew).

Sophie is also happy to laugh and chuckle when something amuses her.... such as a flying tree frog called William.

Sunday evening

I’m just coming to the end of a whole weekend looking after two kids myself, with Andrew working 14hr shifts Fri, Sat and Sun. It has been tough, but I think I’m slowly getting better at it. This morning I said to Andrew that I could never ever do this as full time house wife, i.e. every day. But, tonight (Sun night) I am less exhausted than I was on Sat night (when I fell asleep before Andrew came home). I wonder if I’m getting some stamina? Of course, I still don’t know how housewives do it, as I seem to have achieved very little this weekend other than look after the kids. I’ll need the time with William in nursery this week just to get the shopping, cooking, washing cleaning done (and I have a cleaner!). Poor Andrew is working more long shifts on Mon, Wed and Thurs this week, so he’ll be pretty knackered by the end of the week. I lift off my hair (a hat just doesn’t seem enough) in salute to all families and how they cope with the normal hubbub of life. How they manage when both parents work I guess we’ll start to find out in November….. I guess regular nutritious, healthy, home-cooked and tasty meals might fall by the wayside. Standards of household cleanliness will slide. We’ll all wear our clothes until they fall apart. No-one will be wearing ironed clothes (no real change there though!). Exercise will be difficult to fit in.

Or maybe I should try and be a bit more optimistic. We might be able to work out a way to get some free time. The kids will get easier - well, William should from here on, Sophie probably still has some high maintenance times ahead before she gets easier. While we're all exhausted, William, Sophie and I have done lots of fun stuff this weekend, including a tractor ride, picking raspberries and making Summer pudding, making foot prints of the kids, going to three different parks and eating with friends.

I might go and pour myself a glass of rose.

Oh darn, Sophie has just woken up, there goes my wine.

Would this man make a good paediatrician?

He seems to be like the pied piper – able to mesmerise large groups of children. This is an invaluable skill, which allows all the other parents to sit back and have a beer while Andrew looks after the kids. You can see that we recently had a holiday in the North Yorkshire Moors with two other family friends and all their kids.


We did a morning walk from the cottage we were all staying in, around a field of wheat, during which I suffered terrible hay fever. There must have been lots of grass pollen, although not the right kind of grass to get the seed head to pop off properly to the rhyme: Miss Polly had a dolly and it's head popped off! As William says - it didn't work :)



We also spent some time in the Lake District. Here is William splashing in Keswick.


William at the Cowley Rd festival in early July. I reckon he looks older than he is in this shot, as he casually strolls down the street....

We’ve recently also had a lovely family holiday camping with friends in the New Forest. A bit of home-made bunting (made by Liz) gave the gazebo a very fancy look. It was Sophie’s first camping trip. It was busy. We enjoyed walks in the forest (finding beetles, frogs and a deer skull), kite flying at the campsite, a boat ride on the river at Buckler’s Hard (William wondered if perhaps we might fall off) and some very good pub meals. There were a number of baths in a bucket (including one at the end of a day in a car park, in the naïve hope that William would drop off to sleep on the drive home). At an animal sanctuary for British animals, we saw owls, a lynx, otters being fed, and patted a fox cub. William was very cute running around the campsite in his pants and t-shirt. William was very excited to be sleeping in a tent and as it is so light in a tent had a few nights staying up until 10pm! One meal was eaten to a chorus of screaming kids. Ah, the joys of camping! Now, we are back at home, doing a million loads of washing and recovering from it all.

June blog (just a little late)

William defies violate the laws of thermodynamics, proving to be a perpetual motion machine.

William seems to spend some days talking (and moving) continuously. If scientists (should I change fields???) could harness this, the world’s energy issues would be solved. His energy levels at 5am can be quite impressive, but it is amazing (and exhausting) when he is still going strong 6-9hrs later. He often leaves a trail of semi-comatose adults strewn in his wake on the weekends.

We love listening to his constant commentary, and listening to his use of language expand and evolve. For instance, last week he was talking about a hat which he saw shrink on a television show, but not knowing the word ‘shrink’, he said that the hat was melting. Some of the more recent phrases of his that we’ve liked are:
I don’t need that, actually
Lets play with x all day and all night long.
Around the corner without a doubt.
I would eat it in one big gulp.
That is loady (meaning, there is a lot in that).

I quite like the term ‘loady’ and want to incorporate it into our family language, but get in trouble from Andrew when I do so, for being ‘bad example’. :)
Here is William eating some apple peel - he loves using the apple 'peeler-slicer-corer'.


Sophie sometimes also appears to be a perpetual motion machine, with all four of her limbs waving around energetically like little windmills (entertaining to watch when it isn’t 3am). She is also beginning to try and control her arms, for example to grab a toy or to try and put something in her mouth.

Life at the 96th centile

At 12 weeks old S weighed 7.3kg.
At 16 weeks old she weighs 7.9kg (17lbs 6oz). This is the weight of an average 9 month old baby girl. He he he. My breast milk must be the Jersey Island full fat variety.

She has creases in her folds of fat in mid-forearm, above and below her knees, two on her thighs (which are reminiscent of those of an Eastern block weight lifter) and most of her neck never sees the light of day. She has dimples for knuckles, a crease on her elbow and her toes are like little sausages attached to the ends of her feet. What a lot of baby to cuddle! We think she is adorable. I didn't know what 'knee sausage' was until Sophie came along, and you see one sitting across her knee when you straighten her leg.

Here she is in the bath, getting water poured on her by a very helpful William.

Domesticity

It has been a lovely time for making things at home recently. One of the benefits of Andrew working shift work is having him at home some weekdays, like Wednesday this week, and Friday, before he starts night shift. Last weekend we’ve all helped pick elderflowers, which Andrew made into elderflower cordial. He then used the sliced lemon and lime from this recipe to make marmalade.

I made a pair of simple pj trousers for William out of an old purple shirt of Andrews (with some material from my stash for trim) and have been testing egg-free cake recipes (in preparation for William’s birthday next month.

I also made strawberry jam recently, with strawberries picked while mum was here.

And thanks to Alice for getting hold of the best Anzac cookie recipe in the Filby family, I also made a batch of Anzacs, which didn’t last long.

Our window box and wall basket out the front of the house are re-stocked with flowers, which we enjoy as we go to and fro from home. Ah, I am happy.
Next project is a little quilt cushion cover, as a practice run before I start on my first ever quilt, for Sophie. Here is a sneak preview....

Breaking news alert!!!

After giving up ALL HOPE,
after being asked daily and weekly "Where is Percy?",
and over a year after his disappearance,

WE HAVE FOUND PERCY!!!!



He was hiding under the couch all this time.
There is joyous celebration at our house.

Enjoying the Summer weather

Grannie Pam visited us last week, and was greeted with a great big smile when William when he first saw her. She brought a whole second suitcase with her to transport all the presents she’d been asked to deliver from Australia! Wow – it was like Christmas had arrived.


We had our 6 week check up last week too. Sophie is feeding well and gaining weight nicely. She is interacting a lot more while awake, looking at faces, stretching her legs, following you move with her eyes. I love the cute smiles!!! She has just started them properly recently. I now spend hours just staring into her face! I love her blue eyes too. William’s were brown from day 1, so I’m appreciating Sophie’s while they are still blue. They look lovely when she wears a blue top. She continues to make lots of little noises – sighs, murmers, squeeks, hmmmms, gurgles. Her fingers sometimes grab things put in them and she likes to hold on to my top while I feed her.

Andrew and I recently took the kids to Wood Festival, which is a very chilled out, family-friendly local festival. Sophie's first music festival at the age of 6 weeks (William probably beat here there, as he was at Towersey at about 4 weeks of age, I think). We got the bus there, as it is very eco-friendly. There was a solar powered stage and a tent where you could watch movies powered by people riding bicycles. The festival was very kid friendly, and although a very warm day we had lots of fun. We spent a fair bit of time in tents, yurts and teepees, to be out of sun. William played in the kids tent, which had a paddling pool (so he got nudey!) and crafty stuff on the go all day. He also had fun playing with musical instruments and we all went to a workshop where he and Andrew made a ballonaphone instrument out of rubbish. I want to try camping there next year.....we could hire a yurt to sleep in!


We spent a couple of days this weekend by and on the river. Simon and his friend Ben cam to stay on Sunday, to help me look after the kids while Andrew was working. It was lovely weather so we walked to the Isis Tavern and hung out, watching the world float by while we played in the garden. Then on Monday we all went punting, which William really enjoyed, especially as he helped with the paddle. Then a picnic lunch at the Botanical Gardens was also most enjoyable, as the irises are looking lovely right now. We ate our food under a pine tree planted in 1800.