Google Flight Simulator and Internet Security

Amidst all the posts about Alice, I would like to just add in a few small posts about some useful techie things I've discovered recently. All very useful; honest!

Did you know that Google Earth provides a flight simulator? Simply press Ctrl-Alt-A from within Google Earth to get to the flight simulator screen. The following page provides all the keys:
http://earth.google.com/intl/en/userguide/v4/flightsim/
Not the easiest plane to fly, but fun. I've crashed in to quite a few seas/ hills already. One of the start options is to begin flying from an airport runway. Many of these are particularly interesting airports with mountains or interesting cities nearby. Well worth a try if you already have Google Earth installed.

I've currently mid-way through a 30 day trial of some new internet security software (anti-virus and firewall). Eset's NOD32 has been a leading anti virus provider for many years, but their latest offering combines that virus protection with a firewall and anti-spam (for Microsoft mail clients) - see http://www.eset.com/smartsecurity/index.php. Since I installed the software, I have seen a huge improvement in the performance of the computer. Under our old security software, Firefox would take a good 10 seconds or so to start up; now it's down to two seconds. A remarkable improvement. It's like having a brand new computer. It's well worth testing out if your anti virus package is coming up for renewal. Anti virus software can affect different computers in different ways depending on the installed software, so a test for yourself is worth while. Following bitter experience, I would always suggest a trial period with a new anti-virus suite before parting with your cash.

A word of warning, anti virus software is tricky to test out. With an office suite (e.g. MS Office) you know what you are getting and you can test out all the functionality to check that you have all you need. However, anti virus software only really comes in to its own when you encounter a virus. That's not a common occurrence. In this case, I have read some magazine and web reviews of the Eset software. In summary, it's excellent at detecting web threats (where a website might try to take over your computer via an altered web page) and good at detecting software containing threats (that you might have downloaded on purpose).

Baby-led weaning update

Just wanted to update you all on how it is going. She's doing really well and seems to really enjoy eating with us at the dinner table. It is a long process, but we think very worth it. In the video she's eating; petit filous, roasted courgette, pear and pancake. She had everything we ate on Christmas Day and even downed half a brussel sprout. She doesn't eat huge quantities but her weight gain is moving up the centile chart. This just feels very natural, as she puts everything in her mouth anyway, why not her food too.

We're both more than happy to answer any questions you have about this form of weaning.

Alice's 1st Christmas

Alice caught quite a nasty cold on Christmas Eve and so was a bit poorly over Christmas, but we spent three days opening her presents. Not because she had loads, but because we had to do it in short bursts. She's feeling much like herself again, wanting to be mobile and standing and bouncing all the time, rather than just sitting on mummy's knee.

She got a rocking horse, which she was a bit reticent about initially, but got the hang of it quite quickly and rocks herself and tries to stand up on it too. Family and friends were very generous, so we thank them all.

Alice moving a bit more

Alice is just wanting to be on the move so much. We think she gets quite frustrated in that she's not quite there yet with crawling. She just wants to be on her feet all the time and it's almost like she wants to skip crawling and go straight to walking. She can't pull herself up yet and stand, but she's getting there.

Stuart reckons she'll be crawling by Christmas. So she's got less than a week!!

Alice moves. A bit anyway

Alice has recently turned her "sky diving" style flailing in to something more useful. As she gets stronger she can now wriggle across a room pretty quickly. Obviously, she only bothers with this energy sapping feat if the object of her desire is tempting enough. These tempting items include: the top and tail bowl; plastic bags of all types; remote controls; and shoe laces. On this occasion, it also included her own toys.

We've had a good weekend so far. Today we visited the annual French Market that sets up near where we live. We bought our usual bottles of sparkling , red grape juice which is becoming a bit of a tradition on Christmas Day. We went with Mike and Vicky (which is also becoming a bit of a tradition) and had the obligatory crepes with chocolate spread. Alice also enjoyed a bit of my crepe; minus the spread.

Alice clapping

Alice just started clapping her hands today, then there was no stopping her.

She is also reaching for everything at the moment, however, has no fear. She doesn't realise that if she's on the chair and mummy's laces are on the floor, you can't just reach down for them without some sort of consequence, e.g hurting yourself. But mummy is always there to keep a hold of her. Well, nearly always.

UCB in the North East

Found out by rescanning our digital radio this weekend that United Christian Broadcasters are now broadcasting via DAB in the north east.
http://www.ucb.co.uk/index.cfm?itemid=4857
A bit twee and cheesy in places, but still real Christian radio in the north east!

St James' Park

St. James' Park in all it's glory this afternoon. Not hugely interesting; except the white things on the pitch. These were delivering artificial sunlight to the pitch! Simply, not enough sunlight gets to the pitch in the autumn/winter. What they need is to get rid of all these seats....

Smile at the camera!!

Alice has learned that if you turn on the camera and point it in her general direction, she just smiles and you will take copious pictures and laugh a lot. So that's now what she does. She will stop what you're trying to take a picture of her doing and just sit and some might say pose, but of course we just say smile. With each passing day she feels less and less like a baby. Today when the doorbell rang, she stopped what she was doing, starting waving her arms with excitement, smiled and as I got up with her to go to the door, she giggled. She even waved off the parcel delivery bloke as he left.


This one is just a funny picture of her on the swing.

Alice and Petit Filous

As you know we are doing the baby-led weaning. We had to stop for three weeks as Alice had a tummy bug and was pooing for Britain for about two weeks afterwards. Anyway, started back a couple of weeks ago and had to start from square one. Her favourite food seems to be petit filous. I put a dollop on her tray and as you can see she just either licks the tray or scoops it up with her fingers and licks it off. I think she was holding off on the other food I was giving her until she had her petit filous. So I've stopped giving it to her until she is more established with other foods.

It does take a long time for babies to learn to mush the food and then swallow it. There is a lot of gagging (not choking) and spitting stuff out. She likes courgette and today has had avocado for the first time and it seemed to be a hit. She had mash and peas last week and that seemed to go down well too. She's not too keen on bananas or sweet potatoes. When she does eat, it is very small amounts, but she is getting there. This form of weaning does take a lot of patience. But it is very enjoyable because I get to eat my lunch and breakfast at the same time as Alice and I'm not having a bite of mine and then spooning food into her and so on.

Chilli and Chocolate

Found this in the supermarket yesterday. I have been known to purchase odd food before (I do go shopping whilst hungry; always a mistake). A particularly memorable purchase was beetroot juice (http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-local/frameset/detail/546801.html). According to that website, "A glass of beetroot juice is a delicious way towards your daily portion of fruit and vegetables.". Delicious, it is not; healthy maybe. It did make me gag, I must say. I poured most of the bottle away.

Back to the chocolate then. This was a good impulse purchase. You can't smell the chilli; neither can you taste it initially. After a while though, you notice a distinct and delicious difference to the taste. The experience ends with a hot chilli tang. I would thoroughly recommend! Find it at http://www.lindt.com/1610/3429/3497/3852/4510.asp and a supermarket near you.

Holy Trinity, Gateshead

Yesterday Stuart was at the first event to happen in the new church that has just been built in Gateshead as an off-shoot from our current church. It was an exciting day and was great to see how God enabled the finances and the build; all ready for a bunch of "preview" services before Christmas.

It all started two years ago when a plot of land became available south of the river, with ready planning permission for a new church.

This was the plot back then, with all of us standing whilst Jonathan explains the vision for the new building. Since then there has been much praying, planning and building to produce this new church.


That's the main entrance, with the main meeting room behind.

Then, the main meeting room itself at yesterday's church conference.

Stuart spent Thursday last week putting the finishing touches to the PA system (sound system!) ahead of the event on Saturday. The first event that's open to the public is next Sunday (21st). The idea is that between now and Christmas, a series of preview services will introduce the church to those living in the locality. They will all be receiving an invite and obviously will receive a warm welcome if they come along!

We've decided to keep attending our current church and not move to Holy Trinity and therefore Gateshead. Stuart's involvement is limited to helping the PA get up and running. Despite that, yesterday was very exiting. We are all looking forward to see how God is going to bless this area through this new building.

Alice standing

Alice is a very clever girl and can now stand holding onto someone's hands. Doesn't she look tiny though? Thankfully she's not quite on the move. However, she can roll over and can roll around the room, but not crawling or walking...yet!!

Alice on the Swing

We think this is very funny. We reckon she's a wee ballet dancer in the making. However, Pauline would like her to take tap in the future and then Alice can teach her all her moves. Notice how her tongue is hanging out most of the time, not sure what that's all about.

Alice Cooing

We put this on as a link to our website a while ago, but now you can add video to the blog, here 'tis. Haven't put many photos on because we've been taking more video recently.

Very cute indeed.

T-shirt

What a t-shirt. Shipped from USA, no less. She seems so happy in it that I think it shows she's got an innate grasp of mathematics. I reckon we have a wee statistician on our hands here. If only she can make it through all those drama classes.....
(get more statistician branded goods at http://www.cafepress.com/buy/statistician)

SOLIDS!!!!!

A big day in the life and advancement of Alice. Her high chair arrived today. I tried her on a wee bit of banana, if you click on the pic itself you'll see a wee bit ended up on her nose.
We're going to be doing something new called baby-led weaning. This is where you go straight from milk to finger foods. You cut out purees completely and don't feed them, they feed themselves. So she had a chunk of banana and seemed to quite enjoy it. She won't actually eat any just yet, but will eventually. The first wee while is her tasting the food and exploring the new textures. She did really well at picking it up and putting it straight into her mouth. As you can see she's really proud of herself. I'm being supported by the Health Visitor (who did this with her own children and guided parents through in her old job) and the nursery nurse. They would like me to do a talk to other parents in our area as I'm the first one to give it a go. So we'll see how we get on, loads of pictures and videos in the mean time.

Will let you know how we get on. We're going to start in earnest on Monday, once we've bought the shower curtain to go on to the carpet.

More posts below

Remember that you can see all of our holiday snaps by clicking on the right hand side on September. Also that if you click on the picture itself a larger version comes up.

Alice at the helm

We decided that getting home on Friday was going to take a long time (we were right, just under 10 hours) and so let Alice have a turn too. She did have a few problems in that she couldn't quite reach the pedals, the gears or see over the steering wheel. Maybe next year.

Alice at Wells

This is a pretty picture of Alice outside Wells Cathedral, south east of Bristol.

The Zoo

We went to Noah's Ark Zoo near Bristol and saw these pigs. Much to Stuart's disappointment Alice cried and didn't like them at all. Tee hee!!! Can you guess who's writing the blogs yet?

Alice with both feet in her mouth, not a very lady-like position, but then Stuart would say something unfunny like, "just take one look at her mother".

Some pretty pics

We visited some friends of Pauline's in Penarth (just outside Cardiff). Their house was the one used for Dr Who; Stuart could hardly contain himself and wanted a photo of Alice in her pram where the TARDIS had been. Pauline said no, it was a bit sad.
Stuart and Alice, later on that evening.
Alice playing with Lion, who is now called Aslan, according to Stuart.

Pretty pic of Alice

Alice's First Holiday

Alice has been trying to do this for quite a while, but on Sunday she managed for the first time to get her foot in her mouth. No doubt it won't be the last time she puts her foot in it!!

A typing we will go.

Alice has learned a new skill today. She was typing on the computer all by herself. Of course she needed a bit of help sitting at the computer to do her typing. She's not sure whether to write a novel or follow mummy's footsteps into the wonderful world of Drama and write scripts. This is only a first draft you understand, it'll take a lot of re-writing, but we're sure she'll get there.

H x hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh kjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj b ssssssawwwwwalice is very intelligentwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww \0[[[[[[[.,////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\,,,,,,, v n iii k2 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

We're so proud!!!

Garden and Visitors

This is Alice's first time in the garden when Pauline was hanging out the washing. The sun actually stayed out long enough to dry some clothes. There's no real shade in our garden during the day except behind the neighbour's shrub.

Alice's Nana and Grandpa came to visit this week too. They were really pleased to see their granddaughter. Stuart and his dad did loads of DIY jobs that have been put off since Alice's birth.

Can you get me up please?

A month ago Alice hated being in this ring and would cry as soon as we put her into it. Now she really enjoys moving around in it and curling herself up in a ball. She can normally move herself back into a seated position, but not from here. The other photo is just a cute wee picture of her. Disturbingly, she is trying to crawl when we put her on her tummy. She lifts her knees right up under her bottom, pushes her bottom in the air and tries to move forward. Thankfully her arms aren't strong enough to hold her weight and so she can't move anywhere... yet!!! We don't think it's going to be too long before she's mobile. We'll have to re-think the whole layout of the house and move everything up. We thought we might get a good few months yet without having to do this. That's progress for you.

Please don't go, mummy!!

Alice has taken to holding on to mummy like her life depends on it. Sitting down, standing up; it's quite a strong grip too.

She seems to be settling down after her "not wanting to feed" phase. Thankfully she is feeding again, but not quite so ferociously as before. Apparently, when they are born life is all about the food, but after about week 16 life is much more interesting than that and who cares about food.

What Statisticians do for a living

This was ordered from the Cadbury website: a 5000g bar of Dairy Milk (see the link below). The bar contains 32 "chunks", each of which is equivalent to three normal small bars of Dairy Milk. It helpfully says on the back that this bar should be one person's allowance of Dairy Milk for six months. We worked that out as half a standard bar per day. Not quite sure where a chocolate allowance is mentioned in government health guidelines.....

The bar isn't out of it's foil wrapper yet. Promise.

Buy your own bar!!

A new toy

We bought Alice a new box for her toys at the weekend. The front room was starting to look like a toy shop.

Not too many pictures recently as we've been having a trying time with her. She's decided she doesn't want to eat and screams when we bring the bottle anywhere near her mouth. The Health Visitor thinks it's developmental and says that at around 16 weeks they tend to have a bad patch and come out of it around 20 weeks. Hurrah!! Quite a few people have suggested she may be teething. If she is, we do hope this tooth comes through soon, so we can get her back on track again. If only they could talk and tell us what's wrong.

Sunday best

Had to quickly share this one. It was a happy moment from today. Pauline is just upstairs putting A to bed; not too many happy moments there!

New toys for Alice

In the last week Alice has started getting in to some more grown up toys. These contraptions are meant for babies over three months. So, she just qualifies.

We tried her on the inflatable ring a few weeks ago. Being as it's really meant for sitting up in (something she's not quite there with yet!), she didn't like it as there was no where to put her head when she got tired. However, since we've let the ring deflate a bit, she's now got the perfect lounging position.

Pauline tried out the door swing for the first time this week. Alice was a bit unsure to start with; just standing still and flailing whenever she overbalanced. It didn't take too long to get the hang of though. Now she's bouncing around just fine and enjoying every minute! But doesn't she look tiny!

That pesky foot

It can be tricky getting all those pesky limbs inside that babygrow. Alice is rapidly learning the skill of wriggling. In my defence, the holes between the poppers are almost as big as her limbs!

Happy smile

Snapped this pretty, happy smile this evening; just before she took 40 minutes of squirming to put down to sleep! She seemed to be much more interested in looking at and smiling at Daddy than actually closing her eyes. How sweet!

I want your breakfast?

I was tapping away at the computer this very morning, when all of a sudden, my tapping was accompanied by additional, much louder, tapping. Couldn't quite work out what it was at first. Thought that Pauline was walking rather loudly upstairs.

I eventually went to investigate and found a wee friend trying to break his way through the double glazed panes in the kitchen, woodpecker style. I managed to scare it away with a washing-up brush. My weapon of choice; burglars, look out

(incidentally, there's a flat roof out there for the gull to stand on. It's not hovering and pecking at the same time!)

Alice and animals

We haven't posted for a while. Here are a few more pics of us. Mostly with animals. Alice is becoming a lot more interesting and interested in items around her. She has started to chat with her wee animals when she's in her chair waiting for food. She has also started to smile at them too. Remember you can enlarge the images by clicking on them.

Alice is starting quite a sizeable collection of elephants. She loves looking at this mobile we were sent by some friends.
She also enjoys playing with and chatting to Cow.
Just a funny picture of her when we got back from church. The hat is a bit too big for her and so she didn't actually wear it.
Chatting to Hoopy Loopy; her new best friend.
A picture taken by a friend for an article she's writing about Pauline for a Christian women's magazine.