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.

Abba-dabba

Abba-dabba is how William says 'abracadabra'. He gets to say it alot as he reads along when we read stories about Winnie the Witch.

:)

Grandpa visited from Australia recently,and he was a hit with William, who managed to con him (very easily!) into buying more train tracks.....just by saying "we need more train track". They also had a bit of a jam session together....see the video link below. Duet on tin whistle and clarinet.



As William says: I did it all by my own.

Here he is with a very big straw that he and daddy constructed together last week.

B & W Sophie

This is a blog entry mostly about William, surrounded by pictures of Sophie. Thanks to Andrew for the lovely pics, and to Sophie for being a lovely model. She is 5 weeks old now, and all is well.

We're beginning to get used to having two kids. We're realising that we need to balance time between and with them both. We find some things difficult and other things easy. I'm practising looking after them by myself at different hours of the day (depending what shift A is working). It is going well though... I can say this now, as I slept relatively well last night. If you'd have asked between 7-8pm last night, as we dealt with a succession of vomit and leaking poo (Sophie) and wee in the kitchen (William), the answer would have been a different one.

It is hard to know what William really thinks of nursery, as he doesn't often tell us what he does during the day while there, but this week was the first time that he shared some info, telling us that "Emma has a rat in garden". I was really pleased that he was beginning to be able to convey things to us that we didn't know anything about. Thanks to Emma for having shared this exciting news with William. Emma (whom I’ve never met) is part of our evidence that William seems to be popular at nursery, or at least able to get on well with other kids. Her mum told me recently that she talks about him a lot! Whenever her mum asks Emma what she has done at nursery she always says, 'played with William'! There is another boy in William’s room, called Sai, whose parents have told us that ALL Sai’s toys at home are called William.

Mr. Nude

Did you know that William is a superhero??? He is Mr. Nude and we recently took this footage of him, in a suburban backyard, in green and leafy Oxford. He cunningly hides his superhero identity by maintaining the facade of 'just' being an ordinary two and three quarter year old. Here he 'directs' Nana (his trusty side-kick) on how to 'take the washing off the line', but he is really relaying the secret location of the dragons gold to her.



And a couple more pics of Sophie, below. She continues to feed pretty well, although now she has started some larger possets. It all means more washing, but at least the weather has been pretty good recently, so I can get it all dry. We haven't weighed her for a couple of weeks, but she seems to be growing out of her clothes, so it must all be fine. William continues to be a very sweet and caring older brother. He says "Don't worry Sophie" when she cries, which very cutely sounds like "Don't worry Topey".


Happy after a feed

Nudey Sophie

Sophie's first week

Sophie is doing very well with her feeding, and even sleeping. The last few nights she has made it even easier for her parents to love her, by sleeping for 4-5hr stretches between feeds, at least once a night. This little block of continual sleep is meaning that we feel slightly less like the undead and more like human beings during the day. Relatively speaking, we feel refreshed and energised! Relatively speaking.

Her general cuteness also makes it very easy to love her. Andrew is smitten, and volunteers for the first night shift to be awake and play with her so that they can cuddle and hang out together.

Sophie had her first bath on Friday, and seemed to enjoy it. She didn't cry at all (which is the complete opposite to William's first bath). Although she looks a little concerned in this photo, she seemed very relaxed throughout. It probably helps that the weather is very warm and sunny at the moment. Speaking of which, we've had a great weekend socialising at pubs and restaurants. We spent a lot of Saturday at the Isis Tavern, introducing Sophie to some Oxford friends. It was very relaxed, with the kids all running about, kicking a ball or watching swans in the nearby bend of the Thames river. William and Sophie have both been very well behaved and made it seem.....well, we can't say 'easy' but perhaps 'not as difficult as we might have thought'.


And this is the view that I see quite a bit of these days while breast-feeding on the couch, and will continue to look at over the coming months - the view out the front window of our house:

Bring on the next (and last) week of paternity leave and carry on with the blue skies and sunshine!

A new baban draig

Sophie Rhiannon Marshall
was born on Thursday 8th April, 2010
at 11.07pm, weighing 9lb 1.5oz

After a relatively quick delivery, she cried immediately after being born, and was very wakeful and keen to feed in the few hours following birth. Her eyes are hazel/blue. Her big brother (now known as draig fach = little dragon) is very sweet and gentle with her, and always curious to see what she is doing and tell us when she "makes a little noise" as she gurgles. She is feeding very well, and both mum and dad are trying to get as much rest as possible during the day, as so far, she likes to be awake throughout the night.

1.5 days old, endearing herself to family (= future babysitters!)

12 hours old, in the hospital

William with his little sister, 16hrs old