1 Years old!!!

Who would have thought it, one year has gone so fast and here we are having your birthday. We had decided that it was going to be a small celebration. Me and your dad, Nannan and Taid, Grandma and Granddad, Heidi Moli and Caio.

We had a small party for you and sandwiches, snacks and of course your cake. I did decide to make the rainbow cake for you with a few adjustments to the last one, and added the decorations that I thought would be nice for you.

Your grandma and granddad was staying with us since Thursday and you were loving each moment with them. Playing and showing them how much you had grown since they had seen you last. And learning more things on their visit! Making sure we blew our noses on some tissue you were handing round and making a rasping sound for us. Also making attempts to put your socks back on your feet after your Grandma had taken them off. You now also say what sounds like 'Roll over' each time we sing you a song.
You have had a mixture of toys, clothes, books, dvd's and money, all of which you will be very grateful for.
You have played for a long time with your new ball, and the balloons, making noises enough to make the balloon pop!

We did take you out for a little to play out in the snow, but not for too long as it was very very cold, and you did manage to fall then faceplant the floor.

You had fun playing with Moli and Caio, making sure that you destroyed anything they build with the megabloks that you had from Aunty Sarah and Uncle Danny.

Trying something new

Whilst being at home with you I have found new things to do, one of these was following an email I received from Pampers nappies where I could review items if they chose to include me in their product reviews.
Although I wasn't able to make it into the Pampers I did however succeed in another... maybe not baby related but considering I go swimming often with you it was a good product to review. I will do one review on here just to pre warn you as it has nothing much to do with you!

Shoes!

I had said in one of my earlier posts that we were unsure of what to get you for your birthday. I also said that we didn't think that shoes would be very useful. However on thinking more on the subject we begin to think it would be a good idea, seeing as you are walking so well by now and with the weather improving as it is it made sense to get you your first proper fitted pair of shoes.
We met your father in Bangor today after our swimming lesson... on that note also you are enjoying your swimming so much better now. You don't cry at all in the pool, and look forward to get into there. Usually not wanting to wait to take your clothes off!
Today we let go of you whilst you were underwater and you kicked your way back to the surface, you did very well and can't wait to see what happens next week.

Ok back to original topic... Shoes....

We went to Clarks shoe shop. The lady there was very nice and got you sized as 4f, and you allowed us to try some different shoes, but decided on the ones we bought for you for your birthday. They took your picture also and gave us it as a keepsake as they were your first ever pair of shoes. We have taken the box home also to use as a keepsake box so you can see in the future how small they were.

Here's a picture of you this afternoon outside the house walking in your new shoes! And pointing at the horse that was behind me!

An amazing weekend

This post unfortunately happened without you with us, your dad had decided to surprise me by organising a trip away. This meant that you were to stay at your Nannan's and Taid's for that time. I had known last week that I wasn't to plan anything for the weekend but I wasn't to know what we were doing, however on Thursday I asked your father a few questions... None of which he answered but by the look of his face I was able to instantly say London and Phantom of the Opera. I was correct in my guesses.  I was over the moon as it was something I had wanted to go and see for a long time.

I dropped you off with Nannan and Taid on the Thursday as we had to get up at 4am Friday in order to catch the 6.18am train. We arrived a little tired but went for a walk from Euston to the London eye and around, it was a wonderful day, but when 3pm hit we needed a little break so we headed to the hotel to recuperate and to leave the bag there also.

We walked through China Town whilst it was all decorated due to Chinese New Year. And decided we would head back there for supper that evening. We chose an all you can eat place which seemed nice enough.
But it didn't live up to my expectations unfortunately. We were herded in and sat down, they promptly asked us which drink of which we got our soft drinks in a can as well as the bill which we had to pay before we got to eat, and cash only was accepted.
I thought fine if that's how they do it then we'll play along. We went to get our food.... The meat there was lovely, but the fried batters were too oily for my taste so I gave up on those. There was a note taped to each table also stating that they had the right to charge more for the food if there was a lot of waste! Bit cheeky in my eyes as we had already spent a fair bit in there to begin with. They also hovered around ready to whip plates away from people. It felt too rushed and I think if we went again I would rather have a relaxed meal in a restaurant.
We went to a couple of pubs following that and went to bed.

The next day we again went for a walk and landed in Trafalgar square, but today there were protesters there about equality and other religions/schools/anything really should get more rights and thoughts also... I think anyway, a lot of it was in a different language!
We watched a few living statues and had photos with them and people watching for a while. Then at 2pm we headed for the theatre. We had stalls seats M row 3 and 4. It was amazing and can understand why people go and see it more than once.
The woman that played Christine had an amazing voice and I'm glad that your dad took me to see it.

The only pity I have to say about the whole trip is the manners that majority of people we met seemed to lack! No one wanted to move out of the way, or say please and thank you or wanted to acknowledge your existence. It's a pity as it took away from those people who were lovely and did mean well.

Pancake day +1

It was pancake day yesterday, I had bought the needed ingredients that we needed but for some reason I didn't make us some yesterday. We were out in the morning and you slept for a while after we got back, I think I was enjoying a little sit down too much to do anything else I guess.

So as we were in the house all day today I thought why not try and see what you thought of them. As you had your day nap a little earlier I used that opportunity to make the mix for us. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that your dad doesn't like pancakes. I want to say a good thing as there's more for us, but then bad also as giving us more to eat... or me rather when I don't need it!

I made a 2 egg pancake mix with our chicken's eggs and made very nice pancakes even if i do say so myself.          

The first one was for you Sam, it was filled with a little ice cream and syrup, not a healthy start I know but then I doubt I'll be making any more for a fair few months.

At first you looked perplexed and unsure of what it was and what to do with it. You tried a little bit promptly spat it out, but you happily ate the ice cream off my spoon! I tried feeding you some pancake from the spoon as well which you tried but once again spat out. 

But... what really made me think you don't like it was when you threw the whole lot on the floor... lovely.. something else to clean up! but you did enough to let me know you wanted some more ice cream. 

It's odd that you do enjoy ice cream so much, considering you don't get it often at all. But what even more peculiar is that you instantly know what they are even in packages you haven't seen before. There's no fooling you huh?!!

As you can see in one of the photos everything went to the floor. But when I got the blueberries out that is all you wanted! I'll not be complaining about that!

An unexpected day!!

Well to say I'm excited is an understatement!

On Sunday the 10th Feb your dad asked me to marry him!!!! Can you believe it!
It happened at Nannan and Taid's house, he asked me to go for a walk with him (unfortunately one thing i know about your father is... he hates walks... especially when it rains and it was doing that all day) Knowing your father made me suspicious and question him... and he has a look that makes me even more suspicious and wary knowing he was up to something but unsure of what!
Anyway he takes me to the middle little inner garden and gets down on one knee to propose... And this is it! this is what i have waited 8 years to hear.
Know this I have been asking for years for him to ask but leading to nowhere, I had imagined what it would be like and how I would react.

So.... What did I do you ask?!

I laugh!! Of all the things I do I laugh.....

Of course I say yes, but the only reaction I can release is to laugh... I have no idea why. I don't know whether it was such an unexpected occurrence it threw me completely I don't know.

So now more fun can start... I get to plan a wedding!!!!

Kerry Louise Photography

It's not often that we have an offer like the one Kerry kindly offered about a week ago. You see we first met Kerry in one of the baby groups we go to many months ago and have made friends with her and her daughter Amelia.
She said to us that she is wanting to go into photography, mainly pregnant women, babies and toddlers. But said that she needed practice and experience in order to get going, so myself and a few other mothers we knew from the group agreed to take you over so she can have experience in taking other kids photos as well as her own daughter. I knew you would be a challenge as you don't sit still and continuously head for the camera!

I may have gone a bit exited in some of your photos!!! But I do think you look good in head bands! And think it would be a perfect thing for your wedding embarrassing photo!! Or your 18th... you'll have to wait.

We had a wonderful time there, it was challenging i must admit to make you stay in place and to keep your hat on! But to see the pictures after was well worth it. The pictures that I have seen so far from Kerry are wonderful!

Here's a few of the pictures that I have saved so far

Kerry has a Facebook page for her work which is:
http://www.facebook.com/KerryLouisePhotography.UK?fref=ts

Also a link to her blog also:
http://kerrylouisephoto.blogspot.co.uk/

Birthday cake take one!

Decisions decisions! which cake, how big, how small, what size, what colour, which theme?!! So many choices.
I knew I wanted to make it myself but which I was unsure or a while.
I thought I would try the rainbow cake, which I tried to make this evening with slight changes to the recipe I was using.
It was supposed to be a 10 egg cake and made into 6 tiers. Maybe a bit on the big side for what we needed, besides i only had four different colours to add in! So i made it with 8 eggs and then followed our normal cake mix recipe (weigh all the eggs, then add everything else at that weight as well i.e. if all eggs weighed 10oz then I would add 10oz SR Flour, 10oz sugar and 10oz stork)

I split the mix into 4 even portions and then added the food gel colouring, and cooked for 20 odd minutes and let it cool. Once cooled i made a butter icing mix and spread it between each layer and a small outer covering to begin with, once set I added a proper butter icing covering.

It didn't look too bad i must admit, but it was huge! and heavy.
I tried it but unfortunately it was very heavy, I'm thinking I didn't mix it for long enough, but if anything it's almost convinced me that it wont be the cake for your birthday.

Which leaves me back at the beginning! What cake do I make?!

Your new carseat finally!!!

It has been a long wait, and the time has finally come. We knew you were supposed to be 9kg before we could put you safely in the next car seat. It does say somewhere its 9 months or 9kg, but at 9 months you were miles away from being 9kg so we had to wait!
We did buy your big boy car seat many many months ago and it has been gathering dust in the house. But from today we can happily have you in the car with this one.
You officially weigh 9.1kg!!

Mental note to self.... must take picture of you in your new seat!!

Swimming with daddy!

Today we all had fun in the morning as you got to go swimming with Daddy! He hadn't taken you to the baby swimschool before and so this was a new thing for him as well. You both had a lot of fun in the water, and you were much more relaxed again today and began to play PiPo! As you had learnt that you can play this game with using your hands as well, not only use other material to hide your face as before, you now place both hands on your eyes then take them away quickly... Unfortunately you kept dipping your face in the water as you did this as an automatic move and you looked pretty shocked each time!

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of you two together in there but hopefully it won't be too long and you and Daddy can swim together again.

Almost a year!

I seem to be posting too often some days, but now that I've caught up to where we are at this time i think it will make more sense! I needed to get all the other things in the open before starting.. it just took a little longer than I thought it would to get there, but then when thinking about it a lot of changes happen within the first year.

The next thing we need to think of is your birthday! Your first birthday!! Can you believe it, it's gone so quickly.
People always said remember each moment as it flies by and not once did I believe them until you came and they were right. I have no idea where the last year has gone, but I guess that because were so busy with you and life you have no chance to stay still or to have much thinking time.

Anyway where were we... Your birthday... I have ideas on what we want.
It's not going to be anything big, family, friends and  one of your group friends. Even with all of that there will be a fair few people here so it will be amusing where everyone will fit.
I think I will try and make you a rainbow cake (somehow), may be a failure but we'll have to wait and see for that one, if not then I will have to think of what to make next year for you!

Routines

It's amazing what you can find when you try and look for things.
When I left work to go on maternity leave i was lost. I had been through school and worked holidays, been through college and worked, and then uni and also worked. From there I went straight to work and had been there for 5 years before going off to have little Sam. So you see if anything I had been institutionalised into routine and work.
Without this gave the question of what was i supposed to do? I had no job or routine and wasn't going back to work any time soon. I found myself Making lists however silly or small in order to make my life seem to have meaning and direction. I made lists of chores that was in need of doing around the house.

So the day you arrived made a difference to our lives, you gave us meaning, especially me I think. Spending the day tending to your needs and life had a routine again and purpose.
But once we had settled into a routine some days in the house could last a very long time and we needed to get out, especially after your father had to return to work after a month.

I had looked on the internet and had asked people I knew to find out what i could do, as Sam was young at 5 weeks there was only a limited amount of things I could do with him.
And that's where it all started. Nowadays it feels odd if I am in the house. I am out most of the days busy at groups or going places... I will show you an example of a week in my life:

Sunday: Go to my parents house for a visit
Monday: Swimming with babyswimschool then cuppa with friends
Tuesday: Baby group in the morning (started as massage group and continued into this)
Wednesday: Baby group in the afternoon
Thursday: Swn a Sbri (baby & toddler singing dancing etc) followed by swimming then lunch with other parents.
Friday: Go shopping with my sister and my grandmother

I always thought myself shy and slow to meet new people and make friends, but I pushed myself to go to these places and to mix and to say yes to people when they asked if I wanted to come for lunch or a drink.
I have met many new people and some good friends. It has also made me keep a routine.

SNOW!!

Although we had already had snow before since you were born it was not a very pleasant experience to say the least. You will see that this has already been mentioned in one of my earlier entries. This time was very different.
You were 11 months old this time and not as fragile. Unfortunately for the first two days we couldn't take you out to play due to the blizzard, the wind was horrific as you'll see by some of the videos I will link. The amount of layers I wore simply to go for a short walk to see how bad things were.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j5Su7m8glU

Finally after the wind died down we were able to go out to play, but it was still bitterly cold and we could only get you out for short periods. But we got a few pictures.

The day after Nan nan Taid, Heidi Moli and Caio came over to play with us here in the snow, we went sledging and played snowball fights. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun as we were also with next doors 2 kids and cousin and the opposite side's granddaughter.

As you can see the back garden got a bit of snow.

And this made it impossible leaving for Rhosgadfan!

This is next door's kid!! (my scarf however!)

Swimming

http://www.thebabyswimschool.co.uk/
http://www.facebook.com/thebabyswimschool.swimming

I had heard about these lessons for months but was unsure about going due to the prices, if paying for each individual lessons it would have been fine, but they want the whole fee up front at the beginning of the term.
£10 for 1/2 hour lesson once a week, but following Christmas I thought it would be better that we start taking you to swimming again just in case you became afraid of the water.

Your first lesson was thursday 10th Jan in Seiont Manor in Llanrug. It was a lovely place but the access to the pool was questionable and maybe not the ideal place to stage these lessons. Had to walk down some initial steps in the hotel itself and then a narrow metal winding staircase in the pool room itself. It was a tight squeeze with you in your car seat, and impossible with a buggy.
We had to change at pool side. Hard to do with a mobile baby i might add. But on the plus side the seats surrounding seats were heated and were always dry for the next person.

The first lesson was a failure for you and me, but it was the next day we found that you had your ear infection and explained why you didn't like it at all.
Unfortunately it was for this reason we couldn't go the next week. We had to wait for your antibiotics to finish and everything to clear.
The following week we went but once again you were unsure, but the water was a little on the cold side, and you didn't stop holding on to me.
We made progress from there, the next time we were in the water you splashed a lot more and enjoyed yourself, but you were still somewhat cautious.

What the lessons did provide was a chance for us to learn how to teach you to be happy with going underwater and develop from there. And at the end of the term we had a chance to get a photo of you underwater.

Bad start to the year

One night you don't stop crying, and in the day you're irritable and drooling, you're clingy and you don't want to eat or drink much. We go day by day giving paracetamol and ibuprofen and teetha sachets as needed as you do spike some temperatures from time to time At this point we believe that you are teething, as you still only have your two teeth.

A few days go by and I even take you swimming on Thursday as you seemed better. But had to take you to the docs on Friday.

Unfortunately the GP surgery were at is a drop in clinic every morning. We arrive there at 9.20am and we don't get seen until 11am!! I couldn't believe it, you obviously were ill and heavy breathing and clingy there. You bawled your eyes out once there because a man sneezed but other than that you tried to sleep. It was a very busy morning there, but the other people would have been very angry if you would have continued to cry even though there was a good reason why we were there. I think people forget that sometimes and expect complete silence.

He said you had an ear infection and a little throat infection also so he prescribed for you Amoxicillin. It worked a treat and after two to three days you were back to your old self.

December '12

This month is the month that you decide you want to stand and walk for us, and you manage quite well, at the beginning of the month you are able to stand unaided for 5 secs and sometimes over, take a few steps then fall over!
It amazes me to watch how someone learns how to move and walk and to get balance, especially when they first try it, it looks impossible. Something in them must just click and when it does the rate that they improve at it is unnerving.
At the end of December you're coasting well along walls and furniture and balance is improving on a daily basis.

You have figured out that you can stand up by using the fire-guard and no longer need us to do it for you. This is much better for you as you don't get as frustrated . Now if you want something you just get it yourself... that is if it's something you should have!

Life has been hectic this month as it is time for  Santa to come!!
You had many gifts, toys, money and clothes. You seemed to enjoy yourself, and we had a 1/2 hour chat with Grandma Grandad and Uncle Dave whilst we opened their gifts to you and us.

We spent the next couple days at Heidi's and then Nan nan and Taid's and at Nain and Taids.
And we spent the following 5 days over New years at Grandma Grandad'a place with your dad's side of the family.

And there ends 2012.