Blogging again

I'm sure most of you reading this will already know that I haven't been all that well since the end of January. It seems that my sinuses are the culprits and so have been working along with osteopaths to help get them better. In the meantime I've had another sinus infection and a four day sinus headache. I have started to pick up a few times, only for something else to knock me back down again. Last week started to really pick up and it felt like my body was trying to recover. However, it's been a busy-ish weekend and so have been rather tired, but able to interact with everyone, which I couldn't do two weeks' ago. So am really hoping this is the start of a genuine recovery.

Stuart had three and a half weeks off work and we had his mum up for two weeks too. Then we needed to make a decision about who would care for Alice until I'm back on my feet. So we needed to find a child minder. We found a really great one round the corner and Alice has settled really well with her. So Alice is with Barbara every day and Stuart has gone part-time in the meantime.

I've put a few posts on to cover the past two months. It's mostly pictures and not a great deal of writing, so shouldn't take too long to go through.

Please continue to pray for a full recovery without any more set backs and thank you to all who are.

Alice's 2nd Birthday

Yesterday was Alice's 2nd birthday. Where have the past two years gone!!!!!??? This was Alice two years' ago yesterday, about half an hour after birth.
This was Alice on her first birthday.

What a difference a year makes.

Stuart's parents came up for the weekend and on Saturday morning we had a few friends round for about an hour. Alice really enjoyed tucking into her Daddy-baked carrot cake (which was really yummy, but under very close supervision by me).

So she opened her present from her friends.

Then on Monday we opened the rest of her presents. It took ages. We gave her the trike first, bad move, we should've let her open everything else first, as she just wanted to ride around on that. Eventually we got her to open them sitting on her trike. There's a parent pole that attaches to the back too.

The table is from Nanna and Grandpa and the chair from us. She thinks they're brilliant, just wants to sit at that as well. She can now do sticky pictures in the house rather than at her wee groups and hopefully not make as much mess. It's also a good place to have snacks now too.


We got her these cotton reels. She really enjoyed playing with that for ages making necklaces.

Stuart went to a local bakers (fantastic one round the corner from us) to get a cake, just a madeira cake, but so yummy. She really enjoyed tucking into that.

Nanny and Papa bought her this scribbler, which she really enjoyed drawing on too.

She was very excited to receive this new tea set from Nanna and Grandpa. She spent ages later on making us all cups of tea.

She also got a few books. One of her favourites from aunty Catherine, Simon, Lilly and Jasmine, which is "we're going on a bear hunt". She nearly knows it off by heart. We kept getting it out of the library and so thought she could have her own copy.

The video is Alice over the weekend. We gave her one of the boxes to play with before her birthday. She used it as a cot for Fraser bear. So she's putting Fraser to sleep and telling him she'll see him in the morning. Then when she takes him out she asks him if he wants calgel, which is her teething gel. At dinner time we asked her if she'd had a good birthday, she nodded and said yes. We asked her what she would like next year for her birthday and she said "cake" a small pause and then "candles". Easily pleased. Then she started singing Happy Birthday to Alice. We had a quiet, but good birthday weekend for Alice, thank you to all who helped make it special for her.

Fashion show

This is Alice middle of March when her summer clothes arrived from the Vertbaudet and Boden catalogues. She wanted to try the clothes on straight away and pose for us. This is telling Alice where to stand and she got Fraser bear and stood him with her and then we said smile.

These are a pair of Alice pyjamas for the summer. She wouldn't take them off afterwards.

So she put her summer coat on over her pyjamas and ran around the house like that.

Then sat and ate her snack wearing the pyjamas and coat. We asked if she wanted to take the hood down, a very vehement shake of the head and "no" was the response.

This is Alice posing in one of her summer dresses.

Then she had to try on her swimming costume, over her vest and tights. Then she ran and got her wellies and put them on too.

The next day we made the mistake of not putting the clothes away and so she wanted to wear the swimming costume again. This time no vest and no wellies and ran around the house for ages.

Alice, Daddy and the snow family

This photo was taken way back at the end of Jan. Alice and Stuart went round to visit the Cleases and Joe decided they would all make crowns. So Joe helped Alice make this crown, she still has it, not quite in this pristine state.

Then middle of Feb, the country was covered in snow and the only reason we got to hear about it was because London got snowed in that day too!!!

Alice and Stuart enjoyed their time together in the garden building a snow family. This was the most snow we've had here in about 5 years.

Alice very busy helping to build snow Daddy up.


They finished snow Daddy. They also built a snow Alice and a snow dog. Notice there was no snow Mummy, I was replaced by a dog!!! Alice enjoyed it so much she didn't want to come back in.


Alice and Stuart building the snow Daddy.

Scarf and Crying Kings

As it's been so cold this winter, I decided Alice needed a scarf to go along with her hat and gloves. So I went into the local wool shop and explained what I wanted to do and they chose colours fairly close to her hat. With advice from Marion (my mother-in-law) I knit one. It was far too short!!!!! So that now belongs to Alice's stuffed animals. Did another one and this time it was just the right length. Phew. It is quite satisfying when you hear people say to Alice, "I love your scarf, such beautiful colours", like this morning at Piccolo (actually two mothers said it today!!!, yes, yes, blowing my own trumpet). So I decided it needed tassels. I knit it about 6 weeks ago and only today put the tassels on. I think it finishes it off nicely.

This video is Alice's impression of the crying King of Miseryland in the book Little Miss Sunshine. The first few times it was read to her she just cried, because she is quite sensitive and found it upsetting all the people crying. Then we made the crying fun and now she laughs the whole way through it. She wouldn't do the crying until I told her she could see herself on the camera afterwards. That's why at the end of the clip she stops really quickly and says Alice, Alice, because she wants to look at herself on the video. How vain!!!! Some of the faces she pulls are hilarious, but trying to catch them on video are becoming more difficult.

Sleeping Bunnies

This is Alice's finished Advent Calendar. As you can see there's a bit of a crowd congregating on the right. We did the calendar after dinner each night and since it's been put away she's wanted to pray for it before bed time a few times.

We went to the park at the bottom of our street last Sunday (4th) and it was freeeeeeezing!!! We went just as it was getting dark (after Alice's nap), but we didn't stay long. We came back home again for hot drinks and sitting under the blanket watching In the Night Garden.

Alice got this farm for Christmas from her Nana and Grandpa. She is really starting to enjoy playing with it, I just don't think she knows what to do with it. So all the animals end up inside it along with the farmer and his wife, who we have yet to name.

Most afternoons Alice and I have to have a bit of a singing session. Generally many verses of sleeping bunnies and dingle dangle scarecrow. Then maybe wind the bobbin up, twinkle twinkle little start, the bear went over the mountain, my God is so big and more recently jingle bells. In fact a few nights ago I heard her in bed (through the monitor and whilst she was winding down to sleep) singing jingle bells. "jinga bays, jinga bays... away" then followed by a wee giggle. So yesterday (Saturday) Stuart had to join in too with Alice, doing the actions. No doubt as you watch there will be lots of "ahhhing" and "ooohhhing".

Added a wee video this time

This is a wee video of Alice over Christmas. First part is her with Nanny. She sat all afternoon cuddling up to Nanny. Then a few openings. In the Night Garden book. She enjoys pressing the theme tune and dancing to it. The Bilibo, she's sitting on it thinking it's a potty. Just after this she stood up and had a look inside it, thinking she'd done a wee. Then giving Amy the rag doll a cuddle and kiss.

Christmas 2008

We had a really great Christmas with Pauline's parents. Alice really enjoyed spending time with them. "Nanny/Pappa" was all we heard while they were here.

Before they arrived Stuart, Alice and I went to the beach, the tide was on the way in, but it was lots of fun. Alice really enjoyed watching the dogs running in and out of the sea.


Alice really enjoyed cuddling with her Nanny and spent a whole afternoon doing that. We had just gone to the beach again and she had just sat in the sea; got completely soaked. So we had to come home straight away and put her in the bath.
We all got lots of really fun things on Christmas Day. A few highlights were this "My Quiet Book", which has been hand made by a woman in Northern Ireland (www.fun-2-learn.com). It has a different activity on each page and will hopefully last her for years. She also got this Bilibo. Is it a seat, is it a hat? No, Alice thought it was a potty. She sat in it and said "wee, wee" and then stood up and looked in it. We kept telling her it wasn't a potty. It's whatever her imagination lets it be.

On Boxing Day we went to the beach again. It was freezing, can you tell? We all wished we'd put more layers on.


Another Christmas over. What a difference from last year. At least Alice wasn't really ill this year and really enjoyed opening all her presents herself.

We hope you all had a great Christmas and look forward to a new year and that 2009 will bring you lots of happiness.

That's Christmas

I heard about this on the Today programme (Stuart - not Pauline) today. We have a morning ritual where Alice and I sit down to have breakfast and listen to Radio 4. After the 8am interview, we discuss the issues of the day, e.g. the financial crisis or current political scandal. Alice doesn't input too much just yet, but she will.

Anyway, it's a great explanation of the true meaning of Christmas in just less than 10 minutes. It's been produced by a large Church of England church in London (St Helen's, Bishops Gate). Either view below or visit direct at http://www.st-helens.org.uk/xmas/


That's Christmas! from andy pearce on Vimeo.

Frankie the angel

Yep, we finally got round to putting the tree up at last. With all three of us being ill, we didn't get round to it. Stuart is now on his third cold in a row, from not having anything for years. We decided to get Alice to help us put the tree up, in the vain hope that it would help her not want to pull it back down again. We put the tree up while she was asleep and the plan was to put the lights on too. Then the inevitable happened. The lights wouldn't work. Because they're LED lights, they are attached straight to the wire and so you can't replace the bulbs. So we had to wait until she was awake and go and buy some new ones.


She seemed really happy to help. I also managed to find us an angel for the top of the tree. I've been looking for one for years to replace Stuart's delapidated star. So when I took it out of the bag it fell on the floor and the head fell off. Then we realised that it looked like this had already happened before, as there was glue in the same place. So I picked that off and Stuart superglued it back on. When I asked Stuart for a name for the angel, he said Frankenstein. I said we can't call her that. We'll call her Frankincense instead, so now that's been shortened to Frankie. Alice just calls her angel.

A close up of Frankie.


The finished tree. Thankfully Alice hasn't been too bad about the tree being up. She's been more concerned that we had to get rid of her playpen. She kept asking for it and pointing to where it normally lives (which is just opposite where the tree is). She has only tried to touch the tree a couple of times and when I said you don't touch, just look. She then got all her stuffed animals one by one and pointed them in the direction of the tree to look at the angel.


If we don't get to blog before next week, have a really happy Christmas.

Snow and Spoons

We've all been ill up here in the frozen north for the past couple of weeks. Stuart, who never gets ill, was in bed for two days and is still not over his cold nearly three weeks later. Alice has had this horrible cough which is going around for about two weeks now. Plus I spent about 4 days in bed feeling pretty rough. All on the mend now and just waiting for the next one to hit, oh, right around Christmas. Anyway, the first day I was really ill, I got up about 9am and it was raining, then it started snowing and about 11.30am the garden looked like this.


So Stuart got Alice all hopped up and ready to go into the garden to play in the snow. There was enough to build a snowman, but as I was indoors (got out of my sick bed to take some photos) and it was just before lunch, Stuart decided against it. I think Alice quite enjoyed walking around in the snow. No point putting gloves on her, as she doesn't keep them on.


We also decided it was about time she started using a spoon for her yoghurt. As we did the baby-led weaning (no purees and straight onto finger foods) she doesn't really eat anything to need a spoon, except yoghurt. We've only recently started giving her a yoghurt every day as she's decided to stop drinking milk. She has milk in her cereal and she gets lots of cheese too. We'd feed her the yoghurt and then give her the spoon and pot at the end. Yesterday I decided to leave a little bit in the bottom and she did really well at getting it out. So each day I'll leave a little bit more in the pot, so she can get used to eating out of it. As you can see though, she is doing really well and there's barely any round her face.

Advent

This is Alice's new Advent Calendar. We normally use a fairly traded chocolate Advent Calendar from TearFund. Stuart and I would normally take it in turns to open the window and have the piece of chocolate. If you forgot that day it went to the other person the next day. I went to a Christmas Fair in Newcastle a few weeks ago and bought this for Alice to do. We put it up yesterday and she kept going up on the sofa and reaching over for it. So today when it was brought down for her to do, she went straight for the end one (number 12) and started pulling at it. We pointed at number one and so she did that one and started her nativity scene. Each piece has velcro on the back to stick it to the picture. We told her she does one each day and she can do another one tomorrow. Looking forward to Christmas Eve to see what it looks like all filled. Yes, I will put up some pics of the finished nativity scene.