Scottish adventures

We are currently adventuring in Edinburgh. We have a beautiful apartment in the upmarket West End of the city, just a short stroll from Prince's Street. Edinburgh is a fabulous place to have adventures, it broadly comprises of the Georgian New Town and the Gothic Old Town with Prince's Street Gardens running through the middle

Noah and mummy like travelling to Edinburgh by train. Here Noah is enjoying his lunch.

Noah loves to play, laugh and have fun. He is now sitting confidently and loves rocking back and forth on his hands and knees. He does 360 degree circles on his tummy and can move great distances backwards.

Noah and daddy love messing about together. Here is Noah teaching daddy a thing or two! Still, daddy can't help showing off and going the extra mile with his 'scissors'!

You may have noticed how much Noah has grown. He loves his dinners. He especially finger foods and feeding himself with his spoon. He likes most fruit and veg and also likes chicken, fish and tofu. Mummy cooks him lovely yummy meals.

He is a determined little fella and lets us know what he wants. Today he was wrestling mummy for the spoon. He won....but also flicked a good dollop of watercress soup on himself...ok, it may be a bit thick but he liked it...mummy's special recipe!

February round up

So this month Noah was 4 months old and daddy, believe it or not, was 29 years old.

To celebrate daddy bought himself a Big French Fancy. He is eating it all by himself! Here he is guarding it!

He reckons by putting his slice on a dinner plate it will make it look like a small piece.

Noah is now 4 months old and weighs about 16lb. He laughs, squealing with delight, smiles lots and loves having a book read to him. His new favourite thing is to stamp up and down with his little marching legs...particularly on the top of his changing station with his bare feet and naked! Very liberating!

He likes being on his tummy for a short time now and can lift his head and shoulders confidently. He also likes doing little sit ups and can be pulled up into a sitting position. Sometimes he even pushes up with his legs to stand. He pays a lot of interest in his toys and reaches and grasps them easily and smiles at them.




Noah still loves his bath times but they have changed from a relaxing soak into an opportunity to have a lively kick around. He likes it when we squeeze water from the sponge over his toes and he lifts his little feet up to feel the water.

Noah has now developed a pattern which suits him of sleep, eat and activity and which generally entails being awake for 1 hour 30 minutes, followed by a nap of about 1 hour. He has a bath at around 6.15, a feed and is then usually in bed by 7. He will wake up for a feed at 8 and then again at 10. He was waking at 3am, but has recently started waking at 1am and 4 am for a feed. He is very good though and has his milk and then settles straight to sleep again. He usually gives us our morning wake up call about 6.30/7am.

One year gone and the start of another

The first weekend of the New Year was marked with our first wedding anniversary. A year ago we got married at St Mary's Church, Orchardleigh, we then went on honeymoon, moved house and had a baby! Wow! How much more excitement can be fit into one year! Our friend, Stuart, decided to dabble in a bit of oil painting and painted our Church for us as his first painting. Rather fabulous don't you think!

Both last week and this week Noah and mummy have been snowed in. It has been the longest coldest spell in 30 years. Since daddy works in Godalming daddy was still able to get to work. The views from our house are wonderful and the back garden looked absolutely magical.

Despite all the snow, last weekend we were visited by the adventurous Burden family who decided to embark upon the challenge of driving from St Albans to Surrey...and no they don't have a 4x4 either! They made it in the car almost all the way but had to ditch the car at the bottom of South Hill and trek the rest of the way up with baby Hazel leading the way.

This was the first time the six of us had met up with babies rather than bumps. Hazel and Noah were born on the same day only two hours apart. Unfortunately in different hospitals though so Julia and mummy could not keep each other company. The kids played it cool when they first met on another...trying to appear uninterested. However, they could not resist a bit of footsie later.

Noah has also been engaging in a bit of sneaky thumb sucking. Caught in the act!

Noah is getting bigger and stronger everyday. He is smiling, laughing, cooing and squealing. He loves to kick his legs and has even managed to kick a sock off!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

The Christmas holidays began cold, snowy, icy and extremely icy for us stuck on top of the north facing side of South Hill. Whilst the rest of Godalming went about its business once the ice had thawed out in the sun, we remained in the shadow of the hill unable to drive anywhere. The one occasion that we did try to venture out, we managed to get 50m down the hill before abandoning the car after seeing others sliding back down the hill drifting left and right when trying to ascend. When Daddy thought it was safe to bring the car back again, he got stuck on an icy slope 25m from the front door, wheels spinning, clutch burning, engine screaming but car going nowhere.

As a result of the ice we could not get the car to Waitrose to do all our Christmas dinner shopping. As a last resort, on Christmas Eve daddy took the massive backpack that mummy went trekking around Peru with down to the supermarket, filled it up with food (which unfortunately included lots of potatoes) and walked back home up South Hill. Just as well that he had a bit of practice at lugging heavy loads up that hill by carrying the Christmas tree the other week!

Thankfully by Christmas Eve afternoon, it was safe for Pops, Grandma and Uncle Ads to set out from the West Country and head east to join us for baked potatoes and cooked ham. Then on Boxing Day we were joined by Uncle John, Aunty Lea and cousin Zaak to take the numbers in our household to 9.

Noah and Zaak very much enjoyed meeting each other for the first time and when Noah went for his naps Zaak would ask 'where's baby Noah?'. We think that the pair of them will be very good friends.

Christmas Dinner

Daddy was in charge for Christmas dinner this year. On the menu: roast turkey, nut roast, roast potatoes, sausage meat, pigs in blankets, Yorkshire puddings, peas and sweetcorn, carrots, red cabbage, brussel sprouts, parsnips, sage and onion stuffing, lemon and parsley stuffing and gravy. Needless to say a huge responsibility...perhaps taken on naively. Grandma had undertaken some great prep work by making two types of stuffing, red cabbage and lots of other food. Daddy was aslo ably assisted on the day by Uncle Ads. Pops assisted with the parsnips. Mummy made biscuit name places.



A resounding success!

After dinner, presents were opened. Noah had a particularly successful Christmas and now has a fine new wardrobe and some fantastic toys to play with.

Noah has very much enjoyed the festivities. He has loved having the Christmas tree up and being rocked and sung to in front of it. His favourite way to be carried at the moment is to sit looking forward and upright. He also likes to fall asleep in this position! He has loved having cooing conversations and smiling at everyone. In particular he finds his daddy very funny!

All snuggled up!

Noah, now 9 weeks old, weighs 13lb 7oz and is around the 91st centile.



Noah is now much more snuggy and comfy in his cot now that he has a little baby pillow (a special one recommended by the osteopath).

He also has a new blanket which was kindly knitted for him as a gift from one of mummy's clients from work. The lady knitted it during the breaks that she had when she was at her 5 day employment tribunal hearing! It is a very skillfully knitted blue blanket with a little padded kitten design and trimmed in white.

Oh Christmas tree oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches...

...although still a bit lacking in decoration, particularly the absence of a star/angel at the top.

Mummy made lots of Christmas bicuits this week to add to the tree decorations. One problem is the edible nature of these and they have now been polished off...primarily by daddy...although mummy's friends, Sara and Helena also helped. Mummy may have had one or two herself...just the broken ones of course which weren't good enough to go on the tree;)

This weekend Noah has been smiling lots, has been working on his giggles and is still loving his evening bathtime when he practises both!

This weekend has been full of smiles and another little laugh from Noah for mummy (as a result of the 'fun in the mirror' game again). Daddy get smiles and has been trying very hard to get a laugh but his jokes need work...yawn!
It is the first weekend in December and therefore the count down to Christmas. Noah, daddy and mummy went for a walk into Godalming to see the Christmas lights.

On Saturday daddy did The Grim Challenge which is an 8 mile run/trudge/wade through mud and water on an army vehicle testing track near Aldershot. Daddy completed that challenge in 1 hour 9 minutes and coming 257 out of 2710, although daddy keeps pointing out ' Technically I really came 254 though because I had the same time as three other people' and 'I would have gone quicker had I not started 8 minutes after the start of the race'. To see daddy knee deep in water follow this link: http://www.prosportphotos.com/cgi-bin/show-image-page.cgi?image=MK3_6631.jpg&image_dir=..%2Frunning%2F2009%2Fgrim-sat%2Fpond%2Fimages&show_arrows=0&event_dir=..%2Frunning%2F2009%2Fgrim-sat%2Fpond&template=..%2Fauto-html%2Fcgi-template.htm&order_buttons=..%2Fauto-html%2Fgrim-image-bundle-magazine-09.htm&magazine_event_name=grim-09&event_title=Grim+Challenge+-+Saturday+5th+December+2009&page_title=ProSportPhotos+-+Grim+Challenge+-+Saturday+5th+December+2009&first_image=1&last_image=1000&chapter_title=Grim+Challenge+-+Saturday+5th+December+2009&x=74&y=131

Having completed The Grim, on Sunday daddy set himself another challenge. Carrying our 6ft Christmas tree back home and up South Hill from town. Daddy is keen to point out 'it was 6 1/2 foot' and 'it was bigger than me [him]'. Mummy and Noah were very impressed.

We have now introduced a regular evening bath time for Noah which he simply loves. We turn the bathroom into a relaxing sanctuary for Noah. With the lights dimmed and the big bath filled up nice and deep, Noah loves to wallow and float with daddy in the bath and holding him. Afterwards Noah retreats to the bedroom in a nice fluffy towel where he then has some nice warm milk and his bed time leg massage which sends him off to sleep.