Swimming

We took the kiddies swimming this morning. It was Edward's first time in a pool and the first time for Leila in nearly a year! We took the bus to the pool at Clissold Park and got E to nap in the buggy on the way - which also allowed us time to look at the animals (!?) at the park and grab a coffee and a snack before getting togged up.

Edward was thoroughly confused as to why Scott was taking his clothes and nappy off in a strange location and he didn't let go of either of us once in the pool either! He was doing a very cute baby monkey impression the way he was hugging on to us! He did eventually relax and enjoyed some of the splashing about.

Leila was a little reticent too about really getting in to the water, but was happy to walk along in it at chest height and play with some of the water toys.  With a little splashing play we managed to get her hair wet (without quite as many tears as bathtime normally produces) and she did enjoy herself.  The water wasn't 'warm' and we had to practically drag Leila out in the end - pruney fingers!

Getting the two of the changed back afterwards was a mission - I think we spent as much time changing as we did actually in the pool!  I'm keen to try and swim again whilst we're over here if possible - we seem to do nothing but still not have time to do things!!!

Mini-holiday: our Northants Tour

We had a mini holiday this week whilst Scott was back in Bucharest. Granny and I took Leila and Edward to visit the Northants clan.

We stayed in an Air BnB place that Fab found. The house was stunning and it was a treat (?) For L to share a room with Granny (this worked out ok..,, just one realky bad wake up crying to see me). The trip was made so much easier by two things; that both kiddies were good at falling asleep in the car and the house we stayed in had toys and Jane was very rekaxed with them about.

The first afternoon (post afternoon drive/nap) we went to Maureen's. Leila was mesmerised by the bingo machine in the hall. Laura was able to come by too with her mum, Michelle, and Ellis who is now eight, and their little dog. Leila was a little quiet at first but then enjoyed exploring with Ellis and we all had a good game of hide-and-seek. E just was so excited to explore somewhere new. Maureen gave Leila her first pocket money £1 which I said we'd spend on a comic.

The next morning E napped in the sling and we went to run around at Buckden house in the large gardens there. E loved it once he woke up and L ran off some energy. We then went to see Diane and Pat. Leila was only a little shy and soon relaxed as we played outside where Pat sat. We managed to distract Edward from playing with Pats oxygen tank and cable with a quick charity shop buy. After admiring their large fish, we had an explore of the garden and all the veg they are growing. Leila was luckily enough to harvest a fresh cuce from the greenhouse. Her first glimpse of where food really comes from!

spot the big girl! Big tree!

Running

With Pat and the cuce

Mum son selfie

At the churchyard with Granny

Diane and the cuce

With Pat

Catch me!

Cuce!

We spent the afternoon driving around with some naps and some sightseeing of granny's growing up homes. Then went to Gails to see her, Ian and Grace. Leila really loved playing with Angus and started to get confident and comfortable with him. Her favourite thing was to throw the ball and she soon got the hang of it "fetch angus". Despite his size, Edward was fascinated with him too! We took Angus on a long walk with the buggy for L and sling for E, finding catties and horsies along the way. We just managed to avoid the rain, but mum didn't manage to avoid a bee sting on her toe!!! After tea we had to practically drag L away from playing with Angus, but made it back for bath, bed and a few minutes peace.

Tree walking with Gail

Cheese with Grace

Big cousin, little cousin

Erm?!

Playing catch with Angus

Cheese!!!

Catch!

Our final day and we take a short walk to the local park and then headed to Braintree to see Melissa,  Aaron,  Kai and Sherry. Again L was quiet at first...and E was in explorer mode, but the kids all relaxed eventually and played nicely together outside.

Aaron, Edward, Kai and Leila

the boys

playing in the garden

Catch me!

Brrrum!

It was really great to catch up with so many people and the kids were very adaptable really, but it was tough on them suddenly doing so many new things, new people, new places.

The first leg

The first leg of our summer holiday was a long one. Our flight was due to land 1.5hr after their bedtime, and we were prepared for this, but when the flight was delayed by another 1.5hr we knew they'd struggle.  Both did pretty well tbh - E had a few short sleeps on the flight and L just ploughed through in a zombified way.

We just wanted to get off the plane and get ti the hotel when we finally landed but had a surprise bonus visut to the cockpit courtesy of Wizz! L was slightly bemused but got her picture taken in the captain's seat which was pretty cool.

So the next day we added to our travel means... plane,train and automobile (taxi). Well two trains and two taxis to be precise. We made it to the wedding in time for some lunch (and impromptu hair wash for L after getting tooth paste in it)

Roraline

We flew back last night for the (long awaited) Roraline wedding!  It was great fun but slightly hard work with the kids - Leila suddenly grew very confident and loved running around the venue without us..... We managed though and got to have most of the meal and Scott caught the ceremony (Edward was asleep and Leila wanted to run, not sit!).

It was really really great to have made it back for this. So wonderful to have shared Rory and Caroline's day with them and to see old friends (and have a drink with them!! once we figured out how to get the monitor to reach from the bedroom to the marquee!).

Fly by

Kind of gutted to find out that we will be missing the Bucharest Air Show at our nearby Baneasa Airport this weekend...so it's nice of them to have been rehearsing all week!  Scott spent most of the day at work yesterday watching the fly bys and noticed that not only were they practicing their routines, but they were also practicing their smoke. Lucky for me that today the smoke was coloured too!  IT was truely awesome to watch from the garden, the street (as we walked to the Tia Park to play with Lucy, Grace, Daisy and Izzie) and our roof!!!

June 2015 Videos

End of term-itis

So you can tell it's the end of term and we fly home today as we're all feeling rotten.
Two weeks ago Scotty was on the verge of takung a day off as this cold was making him feel so crap. He ploughed through though with the cold just sitting there on the edge: headache, sore throat.
On Sunday we were due to go to play with Anca, Dragos and Baby Anastasia but Leila had a temperature and said "me feel poorly". No other symptoms and videos not needed, just lots of cuddles and stories.
She had lost her temperature by Monday night, but on Tuesday afternoon Edward started developing a cough. This kept him up a little on Tuesday nighr but Wednesday he was full-on runny nose and red eyes.  Calpol helped him but the cough sounded terrible. I felt it myself on Tuesday night (achy limbs runny nose) and Wednesday,  but shifted most of it by Thursday.
Thursday morning and he seemed just about well enough for Tick Tock but he was still coughing and did a mamouth sleep in the afternoon. Now Leila was joining him though with runny nose and a cough.
Friday now and it's stuffy nose and sore throat for me. Sore throat for scott too from coughing.  E has been coughing a lot overnight and we'll just have to see about L.

Crack of sparrows....

It's been over a week that our morning routines has started around 5.30am when Edward decides he wants to wake up.  I've tried various ways to extend his sleep until the 6am mark, but it's tough to do CIO with Leila next door (and Scotty on the other side!), and he just doesn't want to settle next to me in bed anymore (a sad thing in a way to have lost this, but also nice that he loves to play in bed!)

This morning though it was slightly before 5.30am when Edward woke and then Leila decided against her (relative) lie-in until 6.30am and woke instead around 6am too.  She was feeling a bit poorly the other day (temperature = calpol) but this didn't excuse her waking so early!

Today though we decided to shift bedtime back a bit (and dinner time too). Some people say that the way to deal with early wakings is to go to bed later - others say go to bed earlier...Anyway, we have chosen to try and move things a tad later in the hope that this actually helps with the minus-2-hours time difference we are going to have to deal with on Friday night/Saturday morning when we fly to the UK.  Waking at 5.30am is one thing, but waking at 3.30am is a whole different kettle of fish....

It's kind of reassuring to hear that my friend who has kids around the same age (Olivia has just turned 2yo and Baby Alexia is nearly 10mo), has a similar wake-up time; 5.30am and 6.15am!  It can't be to do with the light in the mornings as all the kids have black-out curtains!

And now we're....in to EVERYTHING!

Edward is in to EVERYTHING at the moment.  He can really keep himself busy as he moves all around the 'play room', gets out toys from the box, cruises along the sofa, goes into the tent, plays the piano, pulls a book of the shelf to read, heads to the ball pit, clashes about in the Ikea kitchen etc etc. It's amazing how he gets around the place so quickly and is so agile! He can climb over the wide (and uneven) lip of the garden door, but often only gets as far as the door as he then becomes fascinated with it opening and closing.  Edward hates it when someone is in the garden and he is't - he will pull himself up and stand at the glass door with his hands on it willing you to open it for him!

Double buggy

So this is now the fourth buggy we own, but it's a good 'un! Thanks to the generosity of the Porters we have a double buggy (third hand and well loved, but means we don't have to use a sling in this heat if we don't want to).
E is not so convinced by the new wheels (having not spent much time in a buggy really), but L likes it. So much so that she gets upset if E is not next to her!
I spied her holding his hand as he fell asleep on the way to Tick Tock today - very cute :-)

Corn!

We're finally in sweet corn season....only four days left here though so I hope it's still in season when we grt back. L loved it and E seemed to enjoy it too - both were quiet for the whole of lunchtime!

Flowers

I'm not one to post pictures of flowers, but we are really lucky to have these stunning lillies blooming in the garden at the moment. We have two huge heads of white lillies and lots of the flame lillies in the pots all around the lawn.  Fortunately the only person to have been got by their pollen so far is Scotty as he is mowing the lawn.

BSB Summer Fair

Four hours of entertainment madness, here we go.

A lovely bit of 'down time' from stage managing while Alex Velea performed. Over the moon to have only overrun by 3 minutes! Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who made it work! Now to nurse 3 blisters and some sore limbs!



Later on in the afternoon Scott's Rock Band CCA performed (and he helped out a bit on guitar and backing vocals). Leila was once again slightly bemused as to why she couldn't go and be with her dad, but seemed to enjoy the set.

Rock and Roll!

This morning Leila and I enjoyed listening to the latest Music Club CD from Neil and Cat. Leila pulled on her dancing skirt for Blur and then indulged me by doing 'rock and roll' when KISS came on.

And now to...waving

Edward is waving!
Well.... More like flapping his arms when someone arrives, leaves or he is trying to get attention.  We interpret this as waving and start manically flapping our hands up and down at him in return. It's very sweet how excited he gets about things. For example he can go crazy with flapping/waving and wriggling to get out of my arms when he sees Scott in the morning or coming home from work.

Edward also goes slightly bonkers about food too. He is really loving his food and we're trying to be more adventurous with what we are giving him, whilst not introducing too many new things at once as a few weeks ago his rash randomly flared up again on his chest. At meal times though he is leaning out of his chair towards me (don't touch me with your hummous hands, Edward!) and squeaking until I give him whatever it is I have on my plate. So a few days ago I had to give in and he had cherry tomatoes. It sounds silly, but we were concerned about them as Leila got a really bad rash around her mouth after having tomatoes and her bottom too.  I tried to keep wiping his mouth clean of the acidic juice and he did come out in a bit of a red rash, but not as bad as Leila's. With it being summer season now he's had watermelon (loved it!), cherries (slightly bemused) and apricots (enjoys) and porridge is a favourite at breakfast time.  Today Leila and I made banana cakes (banana loaf recipe but put into cupcake cases) and he had this too (I only added a small amount of sugar to the mashed banana, oil and flour). Here's hoping that we will have a summer of new foods for him - and me too!

Fabs, Sam and Seth visit

Obligatory 'bath time' photograph.

Enjoying some sticker-book time with Aunty Fabs

Making cookies

The boys and the BBQ

Mister Smiler!

All together for some play time

Blueberry snack time - Leila did some good sharing :-)

Seth

Cousins Pt 1

Cousins Pt 2

Leila loved playing with Sam

Seth enjoying the pool

Giggling cousins

Music time

Music time