Wow. I find it hard to believe that this time last year I was 8 months' pregnant. Amelie has only been in our lives for just under 11 months and it feels like forever. She took her first steps at 9 months and 3 days old and is now a competent walker. She is a bright and confident and sociable little thing.

Here is a quick photo update of her....Nearly 1 year old!

May 2013 -Angelic yes? She ate the flowers just after this...

May 2013- Growing so fast

June 2013- She's off!

Where did 6 months go?

They say time flies when you are having fun... I blinked and my little squishy newborn turned in to a cheeky, grinning, climbing, kinda crawling monkey! There has not been much more work done on the house to be honest.... a few little tweaks here and there, but life is somewhat filled with our little snot face, and we are loving it.

So.... a few pics from the last couple of months. I won't bore you with all the good ones! :)

13/12/12 learning to sit.

14/12/12 Learning to sit 

24/12/12 got it! 

24/12/12 'Look cousin Pippa, I can sit!'

18/12/12 'what are these mummy?'

25/12/12 Christmas !!

04/01/13 'I've done sitting, whats next?'

Just a little size comparison- a day old 

26/1/13-Today! Same vest...

24/1/13 Big girl seat in the trolley!

Baby Led Weaning.

We followed Gemma and Charles' lead and are doing baby led weaning. http://www.babyledweaning.com/
No spoon feeding and purees here. You can see the results below... not sure how much is being swallowed so far, but much has been tasted and smeared and squished! It's amazing and we are all having so much fun with it.

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'Why has no one told me about toast before!?'

Dadddy's Chilli

'What mess?'

'Daddy's slipper is tasty too!'

Four and a half months already. Its hard to believe. She is amazing. We cant imagine life without her now! A few  jobs have been accomplished in the house.. the front garden is now a driveway... some work on the back garden and a few little chores inside the house. However, there are hardly any photos of these things as we have been taking thousands of our little flower! Here are a very few. 

06/10/2012 lovely! check out the matching raised eyebrow.

07/10/2012

25/10/2012 - our cheeky monkey

26/10/2012

Spud/Amelie

We're a bit busy for work on the house at the moment. I shan't write too much today and simply post a few photos from the last couple of (sleepless, joyous) weeks. Welcome to the world little one.

And a couple of Pippa on her first visit with her cousin. She just looks so cute in the hat we had made for Amelie that is, as yet too big for her.

Spud update

So, we are now 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant. I finished work yesterday. Its all getting a bit more real now.... I am going to be a mummy very soon... and Sid is going to be a daddy.

The cot is up in the nursery/Shirley's room and the Moses basket is in our room ready to be filled with a
baby! 


A few weeks ago I visited my family for a day and came back to the nursery being done. It was a lovely surprise. Sid had taken out the desk and all his books out and made it Spud's room. :) 

Ikea lights.... We love them!

These shelves used to house transformers and comics!

Spud's shelves!

Moses basket ready and waiting. 

8 month bump!

Time for Turf!

So, with the house almost finished and the weather getting better (for about 2 days!) attention has been turned to the much neglected garden.

Before

We decided to turf some of the patio. We found an ad for some free topsoil on ebay and went picked up 2x the bag you can see in the picture, so around a tonne. I ehem.... supervised while Sid shoveled into the bags in the trailer and then back out again once we were back home. Two journeys later and we had enough. 

Matt and Jeff kindly offered (were bribed with beer and BBQ with home made burgers) to come and help for a day. They were AMAZING. They both worked extremely hard and fun was even had. Thanks guys!

I gave the bush a trim!

Taking up the slabs

 So first, the boys took up the paving slabs, and broke up the sand and cement mix that was underneath, then took out all the pink slabs and replaced with the yellow, dug in the top soil and leveled it, rolled out the turf and ta da!! a lawn! I make it sound much easier than it was, but the boys worked really hard and it got finished in a day. Luckily, it then rained for a week and we now have a beautiful lawn. Now we just need a little summer.....

Working hard!

The string made them feel like professionals. 

First bit of turf goes down...

Ta Da!!!

The Kitchen

I didn't think there was too much to do in the Kitchen but Son disagreed. I'm glad she did as a a refresh was actually much needed and not too difficult to achieve.

Step 1, pick some paint. The Kitchen was all over white bar the floor and the worktop. White cupboards, white walls and white appliances so it felt like a hospital ward. Except for the tobacco stains on the walls and ceiling, of course.

To the right, 1 coat of white paint. To the left, yuck.

We chose a grey-ish, dusky pink colour called "Lauren" from B&Q's own range with a view to "warming" the kitchen up a bit.  

2 coats of "Lauren". Looks good next to the tobacco/grease stains.

Our original plan was to change the cupboard doors but as a quick fix we decided to just change the door knobs for now. We had a lucky break here, managing to find a big box of kitchen bits in a car boot sale for a fiver. This included the 28 door knobs we needed. These are usually four or five pounds each. They're not what we would have chosen but look great which just goes to show that sometimes you need to step our of your immediate comfort zone with styling options.

As can clearly be seen in this photo, the gold
door knobs were in need of an update.

We went back to ebay for new lino. £65 delivered and we got a perfect match for the new wall colour. It's lightened the kitchen too which makes up for the slightly darker walls.

It's the last time you have to clean it baby.

Posing with a 7-month bump.

This being the second piece of lino I've ever fitted I of course considered myself an expert. Nothing's easy though and, again there was a lot of swearing. Choosing to fit lino in a kitchen at 6:00 in the evening on a Saturday probably wasn't the best idea. Especially when we were out in London the following morning and when we'd spent most of the day at our Ante-natal class. We got it done by 10:30 in the end. I did have to send Sonia out for chips at about 8:00 though.

My lessons on lino:
1) I sometimes found myself sitting on the floor, lino perched on my head, trying to cut an irregular rectangle out with scissors. This awkwardness could have been avoided if I cut the whole sheet roughly to size first.
2) Square patterns make things much easier as you can simply use the grid to trim roughly rather than a measuring tape.
3) Vinyl tears. That is all.
4) Lastly, and most importantly; cut less off than you think you need to every time. This means you have to cut everything at least twice but you can't glue bits back on once you've cut them.

It's all smiles at the moment but I've only just started.
Check out the lovely new door handles too.

Fair's fair.

Sonia is over-crtical...

...but likes her newly-refreshed kitchen.

All that's left to do is put the kickboards back on, re-install the washing machine and dishwasher and sort out the lights. But that's a post for another day.