Birds, Jumping and Chocolate

As you can see Alice is enjoying her slice of home-made chocolate cake. Mummy and Daddy also enjoyed the chocolate cake.

On Saturday morning we took the opportunity that the beautiful weather gave to us and visited the birds at Washington Wetlands Centre. For those of you who live in or around Newcastle and haven't been, it really is a fantastic place to visit. Alice really enjoyed walking round and seeing all the different birds.

At the end of circular walk they have an activity playground. You can play with water and there were ropes and slides etc to jump, climb and slide on.

Alice didn't really like this platform which moved, she wanted off it immediately it started moving. We also got to see lots of wee baby ducks, we thought Alice would be really impressed with them, but she wasn't.

A little video of Alice at Washington. I think her walk here is very reminiscent of the ducks. It wasn't meant to be, just how she walks when she's walking fast. Then Alice and Stuart working the waterwheel. Alice loves to jump. Today she tried to jump over Stuart's roll for his back. As you see she is giving it a good go, but doesn't quite manage it. Kank, the Kangaroo (and Kong the Joey, the names she's given them) jumps rather well too. She is given rather a lot of assistance from Alice though.

More Maisy and running around

Here is a little bit of video of Alice meeting Maisy. She is saying hello to Maisy, you just can't hear her very well. Also, our kitchen backs onto our back room. Very excitingly, you can run the whole way round from the back room, to the hall and into the kitchen in a circuit. Alice just realised this for the first time yesterday, we normally have something blocking her way from the back of the back room, because that's where the book cases are!!!! Initially Stuart was chasing her round and round and hiding from her and then catching her. Then she wanted him to run with her. Think Stuart was just about keeping up with her!!

For those who haven't seen them there are new photos below.

Alice meets a friend

Alice doesn't get pocket money (what would a 2 year old spend it on and they wouldn't know how to spend it either), but we make sure she earns her keep. Very useful little person to have around, or at least she will be when she can reach the sink properly.

This box is Alice's best birthday present. Fraserbear (who is her best friend and I'm sure you've met before) sleeps in this every night with one of Alice's baby blankets. She got the box out and put Fraser in it and then sat on him to read him a story. Little Miss Contrary, which actually suits Alice at the moment, and probably most two year olds.

Alice trying on Mummy's flip flops. We can't get any her size, shame.

One of the frogs from the pond had a wee day trip to the apple tree. It sat under it for quite a while. Alice wasn't too impressed, but took her squirty fish back to her paddling pool to fill it up and then was running back to the frog to give it a good squirt when we stopped her in her cunning plan. Didn't think the frog would like that very much.

Newcastle has a place called Seven Stories. This weekend was Maisy weekend. It is a place of seven stories(floors) (plus they reckon there are only ever seven stories that you can write about) and is for children to interact with books. They have reading rooms, craft rooms, writing rooms, story telling rooms, exhibitions (particularly on The Gruffalo as the writer is from this region) a book shop and the obligatory cafe. It really is a fantastic place. We've been without Alice before she was born, this was her first trip. If you don't know Maisy, she's a mouse with different animal friends. Alice loves the books. She's always asking us to draw Maisy. Here she is colouring in the Maisy mask.

Then the most exciting part of the trip, a chance to meet Maisy herself. We wondered whether Alice would be a bit freaked out, but she was more than happy to go and say hello. Even had a wee excited smile on her face as she was saying hello.

Every time Maisy turned away from Alice, she went up to her and stroked her trousers or touched her jumper, to get her attention.

Alice listening to one of the stories. We had a really great time there and she also loved running around shouting "run, run as fast you can", from the gingerbread man story.

The Sunday Service

At 4pm today (and every Sunday for the next 13 weeks; plus repeated on Monday at 12.30pm) on UCB TV (Sky Channel 586, and online at http://ucbmedia.co.uk/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=6) you can view "The Sunday Service". It's been recorded at our church here in Newcastle.

We'll not be in any of the programmes sadly. It's recorded at the evening service when we're at home with Alice. Still, it should be good (even without us!)

Life must go on.

Life is pretty up and down at the moment and I am taking each day as it comes. Here are some pictures of Alice from the past month or so. I have also done a separate post of a couple of videos too. They are short-ish, the first one if the shortest.


Actually this first picture is of Daddy (Stuart) drawn by Alice. I drew the head and hair and Alice drew the eyes, nose, mouth and ears. A very good likeness I think.

Alice in the garden playing with the bubbles. Unfortunately every time I see these pictures now I remember that about 10 mins after we got in I got the phone call from my brother-in-law about my Dad.
Alice lounging in the garden eating her raisins.

Alice's first trip to Northern Ireland and also on a boat. Just wished it was under different circumstances. These photos were taken on Stuart's mobile, as we didn't take the camera.


Stuart told me later that Alice thought she was driving the boat.
This was the cottage we were staying in, with a view over Belfast Lough. It was really beautiful.

Alice got to wheel Fraser bear about in this pram. The garden was great for her to play about in, when it wasn't raining.

Back home again. Alice using her sticky equipment that she got as a birthday present from Nana and Grandpa in her scrap book.

With the gorgeous weather last weekend, we bought her a wee paddling pool. She loved it. Today when it was quite a bit colder, she wanted to go into the pool, but it was freezing outside. So we stayed in doors and did more sticking and singing songs, then lots of playing with Fraser bear.

More paddling last weekend.

Alice also decided last weekend that she was going to make tea for the frogs. This cup of tea turned into a full scale meal. She brought out (one by one) every item on her wee kitchen and lined them up in front of the pond. At points offering them to the frogs.

This is all the food and cups of tea etc all lined up. The frogs didn't seem to want any. How ungrateful!!!


Just a recent picture of Alice with a bit more hair in pigtails. When you ask Alice to smile for the camera, this is the smile she automatically does and then wants to see the result on the camera straight away.

Here are the videos.

These videos go back a couple of months.

The first one is of Alice jumping. The first bit is Alice Sept '08, when she was just under 18 months. Then the rest are just in May '09. Jumping on Mummy and Daddy's bed has certainly helped her jumping along.




The next video is just of Alice over the past couple of months. Can you guess what she is with the blue cup up to her head? Her bear, is Fraser bear and is her best friend, she gives him loads of cuddles (guggles) and plays with him loads. We bought her a wee paddling pool last weekend and we were amazed that she stayed in the one place for over an hour!!!!!

Pauline's Dad

Most of you already know, but some of you might not.

My dad died on Sat 2nd May 2009.

It was a massive heart attack and he died in his sleep and would not have been aware of it as we were told it was instant.

This has been a huge shock to everyone, as he was so active and vibrant. He played golf twice a week and was out every day with my mum and her friends having lunch. He won a golfing shield last month and the golf club were going to give him an award for best improved golfer for last year, next month. I think they're still planning on it and giving it to my mum.

I was going to post a photo, but I can't bring myself to look at them yet.

I was also going to say more, but I can't right now.

Making a poo

There are some concerns in our household about what ingredients Mummy puts in her cakes....
(Facebook viewers can see the full post at http://www.sandppics.blogspot.com/)

Who's disappeared this time?

Alice really enjoyed Grandpa helping Fraser bear to disappear. So she decided to give it a go herself. I'd ordered some new vests for her for the summer and of course she wanted to wear all of them and only them (and the hat)!!!! Also the park at the top of our street has had a make-over recently and so we went down to check it out. Thankfully the council had it ready for the Easter weekend. It was packed and they've added loads of new things to do. They've got an older kids section and a toddler section. There are some rabbits which live near the park and so Alice wanted to see them. We had to tell her they were asleep today, as they were nowhere in sight.

Plus of all the things Alice got for her birthday, can you guess which was the best present? Yes, you've guessed it, the box the trike came in!!!!

The last part of the video is Alice reading her new book to me. If you don't know "gosh a geeeze" (a squash and a squeeze), it's about an old lady who's house is a squash and a squeeze and she asks a wise old man to help her please. So he tells her to "take a hen" (take in your hen, goat, pig and cow) one at a time. Then at the end he tells her to take them all out again and her house is not a squash and squeeze any more. We think Alice is so funny reading the book because she is actually putting on the voice of the wise old man. Maybe there is a performing streak in there after all. The video is just over three minutes, just to warn you.

Hope you all have a great Easter weekend. Jesus is not on the cross, He is risen indeed.

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.