Emma has visitors.

Here are some pictures taken by Helen of Emma painting.

A little paint made it to the canvas!

This keyboard os from Helen's childhood. Emma enjoyed a good dance to the demo music.

Emma has started enjoying wearing headwear and dressing up.

My new camera arrived. And its great. It has very high, crisp resolution and is pretty quick too. It doesn't fit in my pocket as easily as the old one, but that should lessen the chances of my falling on it.

We went to bed on Thursday only to have to see to Emma. She had her fingers in her mouth and we were wondering whether it could be the start of teething. She is 18 months old now after all.

A lollipop calmed her down.

On Friday Stephen, Helen and Alex arrived for a visit. Helen is due their second baby in February.

Alex and Emma played very nicely together and showed off some impressive dance moves. There was a little confrontation over the xylophone though.



Emma woke before 5am on Saturday. Alex was not long after. Helen and Stephen were the sacrificial victims who took them downstairs for breakfast.

On Saturday afternoon I rejoiced in my first time off since last Sunday. Emma and I hit the beach. We had some lovely light for photographs although the wind was very strong.

Emma enjoyed moving pebbles around. She's developing a good throwing action.


She was singing to herself when I took this one.

With all the wind there were some impressive waves crashing in. My camera did a good job of capturing some of them.



And the big news is... Emma does have a tooth. Two in fact! Mummy has seen them and Daddy has felt one. They are the second incisors seemingly - so not the very front two teeth, but the next one, one top and one bottom on Emma's left. Hurrah!

Cartoon

Memorable November - for all the wrong reasons...

It hasn't been a good month. Perhaps it's for the best that the camera's been out of action. These photos were taken with my mobile so the quality isn't great.

We got back from Centre Parcs to find the boiler out of action. It took nearly 3 weeks to find someone who could fix it. The drainage pipe had blocked and the backed up water had ruined virtually every working part of our boiler. It took the local corgi registered guy a week to come out, and a week to diagnose that he couldn't fix it. We got on to Glow-worm on the Friday evening, and their so-called 48 hour policy meant we didn't have anyone round until the Wednesday. Even once he'd used every spare part on his van, it still needed new wiring which didn't come until Friday.

All this time we'd been filling the bath from the shower and huddling around an electric heater. Poor Helen's been ill and with a nasty upset tummy too which is only just getting better. Poor Becky, Helen's sister had a bike accident and had some very nasty facial abrasions and bruises.

Emma has been brilliant. Special thanks to Leila & Rob for taking her so much over the last few weeks.


Emma is getting stronger and steadier on her feet now. These pictures were taken last week when I took her around Poet's Walk in Clevedon without a push chair. She walked for perhaps half of it and I carried her the rest.


We also went to The Beach in Clevedon. Emma loves the pebbles, especially putting them in the rockpools. We selected some especially pretty ones to take to Mummy.

Emma hadn't really got on very well with jelly before last week. I bought some ready made from Tesco and she thought it was hilarious when it wobbled. She gobbled the lot down!

Emma's been getting up very early recently. This morning was 5.45am which is a bit of a lie in compared to earlier in the week. I broke the finger paints out at 8am. She had a whale of a time splatting and dotting. I managed to keep most of the mess contained...


Some of the pictures came out very blurred because of the camera and the speed at which Emma was moving!



Once cleaned up from that we had a tea party. Mr Cow (a bargain from TK Maxx) joined us.


Above: Emma pours the milk.
Below: Emma drinks from the milk jug and cup simultaneously. Luckily I hadn't put any water in the milk jug....


Later this morning, Helen and I went for a walk around Court Woods in Clevedon. It was Helen's first exertion in ages and there was a worrying moment a few minutes in when she stopped and I thought the walk would have to be cancelled. She struggled on and by the end was enjoying it. Emma was only aware of the first and last 5 minutes as she slept quite soundly after her early start. We headed home at noon. The car thermometer said 11C - quite a mild day for November.




I certainly felt like I'd had a work out carrying that lot round with me.

Here's Helen negotiating a 10 foot earth and branch barrier that the quarry owners erected to stop motorbikers from churning up the quarry.
And here's a nice one of her singing to Emma as we left the woods.

Bristol Zoo and Dave's 30th Birthday

2007-10-22 Zoo & 30th Birthday Fun

I've rather lazily put this link to my Picasa web album where you can see the photos.

We went to the zoo with Becky and Paul who have a son called Joel who is a little younger than Emma. The sun shone and everybody enjoyed the animals.

I had my 30th birthday on the 20th October. We went to Wallmead to see my parents at the weekend. Mum cooked sea bass while Helen went to Sharon's hen night in Salisbury. The next day there was 20 to lunch! I managed to get a photo of all the children in a line.

Sadly the next thing I did was to fall over while chasing my nephews. I landed heavily on my hip and whilst I was only bruised, my camera and phone jointly took the impact and were crushed beyond repair. I only just had the camera repaired! The old camera has been standing in, as has the new phone with a camera that I bought with some birthday money.

Special present

Here's a link to some photos of Emma unwrapping some new slippers sent by Great Uncle Dave, Aunt Lisa and Luke. She loved the slippers, but especially the sparkly confetti! She then climbed into a dressing box and Helen had some fun photographing her attempts to escape.

Oops, missed October!

Early October 2007

Clicking on the above picture should take you to my album with the pictures from early October. There was a memorable meal at Mon Plaisir in Clevedon to celebrate Rob's early release from BT. There are also some pictures from Craig's stag do which I helped organise.

Emma having a Gurn at the Salthouse while we waited for our Grub

While we all wait for an update I though I'd just slip this one in of Emma trying to help Leila with the cooking

Wallmead & Center Parcs

Helen, Emma and I went to visit my parents in Wallmead on the weekend before last. Emma mastered climbing the frame.

Rosie stayed over on the Saturday night with us and was very helpful in the morning with the pastry.

Emma enjoyed playing with the toys in Granny's drawer with her.

Emma also enjoyed meeting the cows. She was very brave.





Rosie showed me a calf that had been born only a few days before. The calf below was a few weeks old.

This cow (below, lying) had had a complicated birth the day before so I helped Peter roll it over. It had filled up with gas and gave a mighty fart when rolled onto its haunches.

Here's an artistic shot looking down on Rosie who was climbing on the bales. We were very careful because Billy had fallen off the day before but luckily was only winded.


Thomas is getting very good on the piano. He's using both hands and playing more and more complex pieces.

On the Sunday, Auntie Angela's parents came over with Dave and Angela and pounds and pounds of grapes. There were eight of us sat round the table talking and picking grapes off the stems. Dave helped me crush the juice out using a press.

I took Emma to meet the calf that Rosie had shown me. She was very keen to stroke it.

Last weekend was one we'd been looking forward to since the Spring. We had 3 nights booked at Center Parcs in Longleat. There were 5 couples and 3 babies. All three (Emma, Daniel and Madeleine) were born within a fortnight last year!

Here are Maddie and Emma enjoying a Teddy Bear's picnic.

And here's Jim and Daniel enjoying some music.

Maddie is SO cute! And she took a shine to me (David). I felt very honoured!

In the Saturday afternoon, four of the ladies retreated to the spa and bravely left the kids with their dads. Luckily, we had Emma along to help. The rugby was on so at least us the grown-ups were occupied. We went to a playground to let the children run about.

Emma found a good mushroom to sit on.

Maddie enjoyed a swing.

And here we all are on the see-saw.

Emma went to sleep when the rugby started but the others stayed awake.

I enjoyed reading some highly stimulating peek-a-boo books. John entertained the kids (and Fiona) with spoons-for-eyes.

Here's Emma showing off on a stump. Well, OK, I put her on it....


Emma joined us for some badminton.

And had her first chocolate milkshake through a straw.

Emma didn't sleep very well in her travel cot in out room. We decided to go home in the evening before our last night as we were going to be chucked out in the morning anyway.

And these last two pictures were taken today with my newly restored camera! It has a new autofocus mechanism and a new lens now.