Welcome to the new look blog

I (that is Pauline) thought our blog looked a bit boring and lacking in personality. So I decided to give it a bit of a make-over. However, I soon realised that all the ones I wanted were already taken by my friends. Particularly "scribe" Laura!!! Anyway, this was the least offensive, or at least the one that didn't make me feel dizzy and sick when I clicked and scrolled through it. So here is the new look blog. For the time being anyway.




Today we went to Whitley Bay's annual Kite Festival. It is a lot of fun and Alice seemed to enjoy looking at all the kites. She was pointing and saying "ite" a lot. Just a 10 min walk from the house. The festival normally has a teddy bear parachute jump. You bring along your favourite teddy and it goes into the amateur parachute jump, it is hoisted up in the air and then it let go to float gracefully to the ground. Unlike the one we saw a couple of years ago when it plummeted to the ground and they brought on the paramedics to give it mouth to mouth resuscitation!! Honest. Today we missed that part of the proceedings.



Whitley Bay is going through a massive regeneration. They've already built a skate park on the front, which was well used today when we passed it. Whitley Bay swimming pool is also undergoing a massive re-build. The most famous landmark in WB is Spanish City (I think Chris Rea mentions it in one of his songs, can't remember which one and can't be bothered to look it up) and it is undergoing a clean up and refurb, not quite sure what will be happening in there yet, but hopefully it will look spendid when complete. They're also rebuilding the Whitley Bay Playhouse, in some senses I think it only needed a bit of refurb rather than a total make-over, it is losing some of it's original charm and character. I guess that's progress!!!

This is Stuart trying to stop Alice eating sand. She's very determined though and we had to end up putting her in the pram with sand all over her hands and all over her face. Oh well she was having fun!!

Fork and certficates

Alice started using a fork for the first time this week. She seemed to quite enjoy using it. She can't quite puncture the food with the fork yet, but if we put the food on the fork she puts it in her mouth. It also gets her eating a wee bit extra as it's a novelty at the moment. She could put the food on the fork a couple of times but it took so long for her to eat we would end up putting the food on as well. Very clever girl.

On that note, she got her first certificate this week too. Not sure if this scheme exists in Northern Ireland, but in England they're trying to encourage people to join libraries and read more. So they have a scheme called book start. You get free books and when you join the library you get a sticker for the first four visits and then get a free book and this certificate. Stuart wanted to put it up in her bedroom. We didn't!!!! First of many we hope.


In the past couple of weeks she has had an explosion of language. She tries to copy everything we say these days. She is learning a new word every day. The latest are: "aggie" for hankie, "adow" for shadow, "go go" for babygrow, "ammy" for mummy, "giga" for Iggle Piggle (a character from In the Night Garden), "wazzee" for washing, "addee" for Amen, "annie" for Nanny and "papa" for Grandpa. There are loads more, but wanted to pick the highlights. She's even starting to try and put words together too. Her sense of humour keeps us very entertained. She plays wee games with us to try and make us laugh and will just laugh raucously for what seems like no reason and keep doing it. Today she did it in Marksies and people kept laughing at her as they walked past.

We were also playing around with the camera today, before we both watched the Olympics Opening Ceremony. OK, Pauline watched it, Alice played with all her toys. So just a funny pic to finish.

Hiya Daddy

We bought this wee phone so that when we're on the phone Alice can have her own. That way she doesn't want to keep pressing the buttons on ours and has her own buttons to play with. That's the theory anyway. After about 5 mins she gets a bit bored and throws it away and wants up on our knee to press the buttons on our phone. She has just started putting the phone to her ear and saying Hiya though. She also puts it to our ears too and says Hiya. Before now Alice got off the sofa by going backwards, but now she is brave enough to get down forwards. Also just a funny piece of video of her laughing.

Alice has started trying to put our shoes on and walk around in them. As soon as Stuart gets home from work, she goes straight over to his shoes and undoes the laces, much to his annoyance. It's OK when you get home from work, not OK when you're rushing out in the morning to catch the metro.



Just a couple of wee funny pictures to finish.

The Ark, Curls and Walking sdrawkcab.

Not sure if this is the start of imaginative play or not, but she does enjoy playing with the animals from her ark. She can recognise animals now and when we ask her to bring us the camel, she does and then brings the other one (there are two of every kind you know).



Of course when you see photos of Alice, what you don't see are all these wee curls that are forming at the back. It's so funny, because her hair is poker straight at the top and curly at the back. Not great to have that combination of mummy and daddy.





Alice started walking backwards the other day too. The first time she did it, we just laughed and laughed and then she did it loads and loads, looking very proud of herself.

Rock on Rocky

This is how Alice says banana. Not quite sure why she doesn't just make a noise to go with the facial expression. Also she went through a wee phase of not wanting to go on Rocky, but quite enjoys having a go now. I think maybe it's because she can rock properly now. Alice is quite a mover, wouldn't you say? She certainly doesn't get her rhythm from her father. He can't dance to save his life. She sometimes moves on to shimmying her shoulders and sometimes shaking her leg, Elvis style. The radio is just above where she's dancing and when she wants to dance she always goes to that spot just below the radio. She'll walk into the kitchen, have a dance and then come back into the back room again when she's had enough. Funny girl!!! Well we think so anyway.

What you talkin' about Willis?

Alice has started pulling this face when we're eating at the dinner table. Not quite sure which parent she's mimicking!!! She's started pulling funny faces to try and make us laugh, rather than us pulling ridiculous faces to make her laugh. The frown can go a lot deeper than this. It did remind me of the 70s programme Diff'rent Strokes where Arnold used to shout this at his brother and pull a similar face.

She looks really angry, but she's not at all, because two seconds later she's laughing and smiling.

This is more like the Alice we know and love.

Nana and Grandpa's visit

Nana and Grandpa (Stuart's parents) came to visit Alice for a few days this week. She really enjoyed spending time with them getting to know them all over again. That's the problem with a wee person, they forget easily and relationships have to be built up with each visit. Not be long though, until she does remember who they are. We were given a wee photo album by a friend of Ian's (Stuart's dad) in which to put photos of family members she doesn't see that often. So hopefully that'll help.

We took Alice swimming for the first time this week. She wasn't too sure initially, but we put her in a wee inflatable seat where her legs could dangle out the bottom and within a few minutes she seemed to enjoy it. The pool was great because it has communal changing rooms (with cubicles obviously), but it means that when we take her swimming again we can both be dealing with her while one of has a shower etc, rather in different changing rooms. Really great idea.

We went to Bedlington Country Park, not that great, don't think we'll go back but good for a quick stroll. However, we did all get bitten (apart from Alice thankfully), just not much there. This is Daddy keeping a tight hold of Alice close to the river.

Grandpa carrying Alice over a wee bridge. Always wearing blue, I think it's Arsenal he supports, or is that Spurs? I can never remember.

We had another trip to Whitehouse Farm to see the "gags" as Alice calls pigs. Of course it's more for Daddy to see the "gags" rather than Alice. She did enjoy being on this tractor and beeping the horn.
When we got back from the farm we got the bubble machine out. Not sure Nana was overly impressed by how sticky the bubbles were.
Alice enjoying chasing and catching the bubbles.
Really great to see them and for Alice to get to know them more, see you in 5 weeks again!!

Mr Pig and Headwalking

Stuart was putting the washing out one day and Alice was being very "helpful" in trying to put them on the airer too. Well actually pull them off and hand them back to Stuart to put them back on again.
The tadpoles are now becoming froglets. Some have no tails and some have very small tails and some a bit longer like this. Pauline nearly mowed over one the other day, but she managed to avert a near disaster.




This pig does not belong to Alice it was bought for Stuart quite a few years ago. However, Alice really enjoys playing with him and today was even giving him a cuddle. Maybe she's going to be a puppeteer. Also this seems to be a progression from the headstands that she does. She bends over like this to get up from when she's sitting on the floor, but she decided to go for a "walk" like this instead.

Also it has been a lot of fun catching up with old friends this past week. If you want to see some very old photos of Pauline then go to Laura's blog. Hope you all enjoy reunion.

Remember me, Remember me.

A few of us from Belfast have been on a friend's blog remembering the great times we had as teenagers. People are coming out from the woodwork left, right and centre. It's been brilliant to remember those days. I have even found my diaries from 1984/85 and have been posting them on the blog. If you want to know what we got up to then go to Laura's blog. It might not make you laugh, but it certainly has been giving us a lot of entertainment this week. There are even some photos from those days.

Clayton Media

Our church, Jesmond Parish Church has set up an on-line Christian channel. Zoe Earnshaw has done a Masters degree in Media Studies and wanted to use it to create a media channel with Christian ethics. She is relying completely on donations to ensure the future of the channel. If you are interested in what goes on at our church the evening services are filmed every week and so you can catch some of the singing and the sermons. The website is:

http://www.clayton.tv

There are also other programmes to view, interviews and talks from around the world.

Nanny's visit

Pauline's mum came over this week for a visit to catch up with grandchild number 7. Alice enjoyed playing with the bubbles, sitting on Nanny's knee reading stories, doing "horsey horsey", playing football (Nanny was very impressed with Alice's dribbling skills, the ball that is not because she's teething) and generally being doted on.
We also took another trip to Alnwick Gardens. Pauline's mum generally comes over at Christmas when it's dark by about 3pm. So it was a treat to show Nanny some of the beauties this part of the country has to offer. We took a drive through Northumberland to keep Alice asleep and also show Nanny some of the stunning scenery.
Nanny, Pauline and Alice posing for a family portrait at Alnwick Gardens.
We also got Alice this wee kitchen. She follows Pauline around wanting up when she's trying to cook. So we thought getting this kitchen might help. However, Alice has had Nanny to entertain her this week, so we'll see how she goes with it next week. We got it through Freecycle. Don't know if you've heard of it, it's online and is all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. It's free to join up and you join a group in your local area. I was thinking about buying Alice a wee kitchen and then this came up and snapped it up. We also got rid of her old car seat and baby bath. You can't sell car seats on, in case they've been in a crash, so this was ideal. The car seat was as good as new and so it seemed a shame to just throw it in the dump. Really glad someone can use it instead.

We bought her this wee bubble machine. It was a bit windy when we used it, but she really enjoyed chasing the bubbles around and trying to burst them. No doubt much fun will be had on warm sunny days in the garden chasing bubbles.

Alice's corner

Alice spends a lot of her day in this corner. At the end of the day if we can't find a book or one of her blocks, it's generally behind the sofa, down in the corner or under the sofa. The corner is between the sofa and the window in the back room. She also hides behind the curtains or plays hide and seek, where she crawls down the side of the sofa and then crawls out and one of us shouts "boo" or "hiya". A good hidey hole.

We went to a farm on Monday and Alice really enjoyed looking at all the animals, especially the pigs. Then on Tuesday (as Stuart had a privilege day; civil servants get two extra bank holiday days a year) we went up to Alnwick (pronounced Annick) Gardens. Just beautiful, always a favourite of ours. This was Alice's first trip up. It's about a 45 min drive north of us and we put on her music CD and it kept her quiet the whole way up. She really enjoyed walking around the gardens at the top, looking at the water features (which are fab) and doing the maze. We didn't have time for the tree house or the woodland walk. Next time. Picture of Alice and Stuart looking at the pigs at the farm.