Yeah!!! A Tooth Appears :)

After three months of trying, today Toby managed to produce his first tooth - the middle, bottom left one. He must have felt better for it having come through as he was in a great mood this afternoon and went to bed without any fuss. With the good moods, we decided to go for an impromptu picnic down by the canal and then had a very relaxing pint in the beer garden of the local pub . . . we could get use to this!

Beth started playgroup today. We've decided not to send her to nursery for the moment as she wasn't a big fan, she didn't mind it too much once she was there but certainly didn't like the idea of it and was always really tired by the end of the day. The playgroup is only two mornings a week and only 2 1/2 hours. I planned on staying for the session today to get her use to the surroundings, etc. but she jumped straight in and wasn't fussed if I was there or not so Toby and I headed home. It was rather nice as it's only a ten minute walk through the village and I just had enough time to feed Toby, make him some food and read the paper during his nap time then get back in time to pick Beth up. Very civilised! It would be nice if it was slightly longer but at least Beth was in a good mood after and we had a good afternoon exploring the local library (quite enjoyable as she's past the 'pull everything off the shelves' stage).

Absolutely no relevance to the post but here is a pic of Beth feeding the ducks.

Cusworth Hall

With nothing much to do this morning I decided we should check out Cusworth Hall. This is a Georgian house and parklands in the next village to us. It's actually in walking distance but I thought it might rain so we drove (also I know it's through fields if you walk and I didn't want to get stuck if the pushchair wouldn't fit!).

It was great, like finding a gold mine next door, as it has everything you could want when trying to wear out two children. By the car park there is a play area. I think it's meant for slightly older children but that didn't stop Beth jumping straight in. The house is at the top of a hill and has steps to run up and down and also a tea room (nice thought but we didn't quite make it in there).

The duck pond/stream is at the bottom of the hill and also has a couple of great conker trees around. We were actually far more restrained than other visitors when getting to the bottom. We walked/ran rather slowly down the path but we did see quite a few children rolling down. I would imagine on our next visit Beth may attempt this descent. Part way down we stopped for a snack, Toby nearly retched when he tried the one-pot chicken I had spent so long preparing but gobbled down the applesauce.

After feeding the ducks we wandered along the pond and saw some fish. Unfortunately they had to go hungry as Beth had eaten the rest of the bread. Before heading back up the hill we found a fallen tree to play on and leap off. I think we'll be back to visit again soon as it was a great morning out.

Moving and the Dambuster Reservoir

It was a close thing but no, we didn’t have to pitch our tent on Tuesday night – we signed the papers and picked the keys up as the moving truck sat outside the house. Everything went pretty well but we weren’t that impressed with the firm that moved us as there were more bits damaged during this move (a total of 31 hours) than during the move from CA (a total of 840 hours). Anyway, things are in and we’re gradually unpacking. Beth seems to like the new house - she is free to roam wherever she chooses (no gates up though we’ll have to reinstall them once Toby is on the move), and she has toys and books in her room rather than just her bed and dresser.

I’m not sure why but already this house seems more homely than the last one. This evening we ate dinner in the garden, something we never did in the seven months at the other place. It might be because we knew that we weren’t going to be at the other one for long so never made much of an effort to make it feel like ours.

After all the rushing about during the week, we decided to go for a walk in the Peak District this morning – our old stomping ground. We went to Derwent Reservoir (where the Dambusters use to practice during the Second World War) and had a good mooch around. Beth thought the dam was a castle and was sure that we would find a princess at the top. Unfortunately we didn’t but instead we found a tiny frog and also saw lots of other wildlife including a squirrel eating blackberries, a robin and plenty of sheep.

Moving . . .

Just thought I'd do a quick post to let everyone know that Monday and Tuesday (15th &16th) will be moving days for us - packing up on the first day and actually moving it all and unpacking on the second day. Hopefully it won't be too stressful since we decided to get the moving company to do our packing - I think we were spoiled by the move from CA! Also, the phone line at the new house should be working by the time we move in and I think we're just about on top of swapping all the utilities over, knowing where the furniture will go and I have even got a grocery shop booked to deliver on Tuesday night.

Obviously I wouldn't like you all to think that we're too organised so just to mix it up a little, we haven't actually got final confirmation that we have a house to move to but it should be ok. ;) If not, I'm sure we can pitch our tent by the canal.

Apologies for the lack of photos, we'll try and do something interesting over the weekend (in between sorting stuff out) so I can post some soon.

CBeebies

There was great excitement today as we took Beth and Toby to the theatre for the very first time. We were going, with cousin Adam, to see the CBeebies show (CBeebies is the BBC television channel for children under 7 and has characters as much loved as Elmo). We were in a box which was great since it was contained and Adam and Beth could move about a bit and dance without annoying anyone else.

At first I think Beth was rather overwhelmed by the whole thing as she just watched with a very serious look on her face. She did gradually relax and join in later on. I think she was trying to process what was going on and if the characters were real, etc. Toby didn't seem to be able to take his eyes off the stage and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Postman Pat made an appearance along with Tommy Zoom, PC Plum and the Koala Brothers. Not sure if any of those mean anything to anyone but thought I'd include them anyway! We'll be heading back to that theatre later in the year for the Christmas pantomime. It'll be interesting to see what she thinks of that.

After the show, we went out for tea which included ice cream. I think by the time we headed home we had a very tired little girl on our hands. Beth was rather horrid and the only words we heard coming from the backseat were 'shut up' (not sure where she picked that up!), and 'NO'. Hopefully she'll get lots of sleep tonight and be charming by tomorrow morning.

Day At The Beach, Brit Style!

This post is going to be more pics than writing as I was a bit snap happy on our trip to Seaton Carew. Anyway, this is how we do a day at the beach . . . no sun or bikinis in sight, just buckets, spades and lots and lots of running. :) Gran, grandad and Adam were there and of course Toby ventured out in the carrier!

The beach is absolutely huge and very quiet, just a few dogs and horses about. We started with our buckets, spades and rakes digging holes and making pictures. It's amazing that that simplest things can occupy toddlers for hours. After that we had a wander down to the water. Beth still doesn't like to be close to the edge of the sea, I've no idea why as she loves being close to the edge of ponds, lakes, rivers, baths ;) I think it's the crashing of the waves that scares her.

After a picnic lunch (in the car as it was a bit windy), we headed into the dunes for a play. It was good fun to run around up there but rather easy to loose children as there are so many little mounds and dips. I love this picture of Beth, it looks like she's preaching something with a big 'hallelujah'. Just as we were thinking of leaving it started to rain so we packed up and headed home.

Here's one last photo - don't they both look angelic?!?