Not the birthday we were expecting.

This is the washing machine containing the second load of sick-coated clothing of the day.

Poor Thea spent last night throwing up and is continuing the trend today.

So roast chicken with friends and carrot cake have been put on hold.

Cars

The most useful thing about having to visit a hideous out-of-town shopping centre - finding a garage forecourt with cars for sale on ramps!

Less useful - the extent of my knowledge of what all those bits if metal were!

Change

We used to spend so much time in Rowntree Park that I would never have believed that something coud change and us not know about it immediately.

But now that we live a whole 10 minutes cycle away, we are not so on top of things.

So we took great pleasure in discovering that they had created some woodland paths along the back and there is now even a waterfall!

We also enjoyed the bike ramps while there was no-one there to get in our way.

Thea was more cheery than this most of the time.

How they are now

Nathaniel at 4 years and 1 month

Dorothea at 11 months (mostly snotty)

Another Tuesday

Some playing: And then messing about in the garden. Everyone likes gardening.

Music

Nathaniel attends a music group which he really enjoys. Recently they have been doing a good deal of xylophone playing and Nathaniel has been desperate to play. (Check out the marimba ponies on YouTube to see what he's wanting to do).

He was overjoyed to find a music set at the toy bus, but in my stupidity I didn't think to check that the xylophone actually worked, so now we have a xylophone which has its longest bar making a higher note that one of the shorter ones (?!), and three bars making that same note.

It hasn't deterred Nathaniel from making music though. This is his rendition of Hickory Dickory Dock. He worked it all out in advance and then asked me to sing it. The chimes are played during the words "hickory dickory", the triangle is for the clocked striking one (or two or three), the xylophone is used for the mouse running up and down (except due to the previously mentioned disabilities of the instrument, its not really clear when its going up or down), and for the tick tock.

Tuesday

It hasn't been a particularly exciting day, but very pleasant. A good day for an autumnal cycle into Acomb to buy new toothbrushes (?!), and then stop to munch elderberries at every tree on the way home. Thea seemed to think it was relaxing! We have heard about Thea's prowess with a bowl and spoon but not had concrete evidence of it. Now we have! Hooray for rice pudding.

End of the afternoon

Maybe I work them too hard!

When it rains....

.....make great towers of recycling!

Spicy

Today we had lunch at Wagamama which Nathaniel had been looking forward to for some time.

He calls it the prawn and noodle restaurant and very clear that we would be ordering the lollipop prawn kushiyaki.

Unfortunately after one bite he decided that it was too spicy even for him. Ian and I thought it was quite hot too.

But Thea was not perturbed. After she had finish chewing on the stick she slowly worked her way through a whole one and was not put off when a couple of bites turned her face bright red!

(Nathaniel declined to take part in any photos.)

Sorry

We've been a bit busy, but will do some updating very soon.....

Preparations 2012

More movement

We suspected that a weekend camping would be the catalyst for proper crawling and now nothing is safe. Mostly we see this: and this... and this:

Warwickshire

Its crazy to think that we actually suggested to James and Beth that we altered our plans for this weekend because the weather looked so awful! In fact, the weather was wonderful for a spot of camping!

We met up near Stratford upon Avon as it is between the two of us (silly country with no good landscapes equidistant and not far from York and Basingstoke!), at a campsite that allowed campfires and no cars near the tents. Wheelbarrows were provided to move around you stuff and to play in ad infinitum!

This made everyone happy, even those too small to really appreciate the fun of wheelbarrow races.

It was a lovely campsite and pretty much empty so we had acres of space to ourselves and lovely clearings in long grass to pitch. Its no wonder that we spent most of Sunday playing around the campsite in the warm sun and only ventured out for a short walk down to the airfield to watch little planes take off and land.

The best thing about a campfire isn't a fire after dark with marshmallows, its actually breakfast. There is nothing better than rekindling a still warm fire and making breakfast on it while it warms you up in the cool morning air.

We had bacon and eggs and toasted bagels. Perfect!

Then we spent the day at the Heritage Motor Centre which Nathaniel thought was amazing. He looked at pretty much everything, and played with all the hands-on exhibits, but unsurprisingly, liked the couple of vintage cars that you were allowed to climb on the most. Thea thought they were pretty good too.

Nathaniel's next favourite was an MG Midget which had been taken apart so that you could look at cross sections of it all. We spent a long time here......

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. We got to sit and chat for ages and the kids all amused each other, each thinking the older one was amazing, and Nathaniel delighting in playing in Beth and James' tent.

Making flower wheels

More movement

We are all go for commando crawling, and the occasional bit of conventional crawling.

This area of the room was totally tidy when I left her.

Its fun to remove every item off the shelves!

A very ordinary picnic

It wasn't forecast to be a particulary sunny day, but it seemed like a good day for a picnic, so we packed ourselves into trailers and headed down the solar system.

First, an obligatory stop at the bumps by the sun for some wizzing;

and some scooting;

and some watching;

Then we scoured the sides of the cycle path for an area where dogs hadn't been allowed to make their presence known, and ended up sitting on the bridge where we ate, trying to persuade the kids to stay sitting down and not stray into the paths of the bikes that were constantly zooming past.

Then to a playground that we'd never visited before, an ice cream, and swinging;

and playing in the sand.

It wasn't a new or exciting adventure, but it was exactly what the day called for.

NB. You may wonder what on earth Nathaniel is wearing! Someone gave us a Bob the Builder dressing up outfit, complete with a hard hat, and Nathaniel has just discovered it. He doesn't really know who Bob the Builder is (though he sings the song at nursery), but he does know that he likes the outfit. He tells me that it is his fire engine outfit. Go figure......