Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you all had a relaxing Christmas and best wishes for 2009.

Today we went for a walk in The Peak District. Santa had bought Steve a book with walks in Derbyshire with children so we thought we'd try one out. The one we chose was around Derwent Water, we've been for short walks around there before but never for a proper walk. The weather wasn't too bad, it was dry but a little cold and got colder as we walked. At the highest point there was 'icing' on the ground (poor Beth was a little bit disappointed when she realised it was frost and ice especially since icing is quite possibly her favourite food!).

Toby was in the carrier and seemed fairly happy to be there. I think he got a little chilly (we need to invest in a snow suit for him) as his hands, despite the gloves, were little blocks of ice by the time we got back to the car. This pic is from New Years Day, bit cheerier than him looking cold! Part way round we had some soup (very organised I thought) and that perked Beth up - I think the hill had worn her legs out. She did really well, the walk was about three miles and she did the whole lot herself.

I think the tiredness hit her around five o'clock at tea time when she asked for a bath and didn't want anything to eat. We managed to shove half a plate worth of food into her then off she went for her bath and was in bed before six. Toby, not wanting to miss out on the bath, had a good splash but was having none of the bed so he had a good play until just after seven.

Christmas And The Hols

We have had a lovely 'holiday season' so far. As you can probably guess from the date and time I'm writing this, we're not doing too much to see the new year in!

Christmas Day and Boxing Day we stayed at home - amazingly there were still presents to be opened on Boxing Day. Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Jane came to join in the fun on Christmas and we had a very relaxing day opening gifts, playing, eating and walking. As you can see, Toby is extremely excited about the prospect of opening presents. ;)

Between them they got a very good haul, Beth loved everything she got and wanted to use it right away. It was definitely a Christmas of dressing up for her as grandma and grandpa gave her a dressing up box filled with hats, skirts, capes, dresses and even a Robin Hood costume. She was a little hesitant at first but soon jumped in and hasn't stopped playing with it since. It can get a little tiresome when we have a different character at every meal!

Toby got some good boyish toys - we were a little mean with our gifts as we have so many toys already it seems a waste to buy loads more. However, everyone else was very generous and from these new toys, a love of wheels has been revealed (seems he's a proper boy). One of his favourites is his Caterpillar truck from Auntie Jane.

On the 27th we headed up to see Gran and Grandad and catch up with cousin Adam. It was a nice few days and Beth didn't want to return home as she likes being on holiday too much (her words). I suspect she rather likes all the presents and attention while 'on holiday.'

Nativity and Crawling

On Thursday (18th) Toby managed to eventually get out of reverse and into drive to begin crawling forwards. He is now rather unstoppable and getting into everything. His favourite locations now seem to be the fireplace and the Christmas tree. His crawling isn't particularly quick yet but he is rather sneaky and be up to his elbows in something before you blink. He's managing to annoy Beth constantly now as he goes straight for her toys - especially her dolls house. The house will need a bit of babyproofing - gate on the stairs and lowering his mattress. I think we're going to have to get Beth to close doors behind her to stop him going in the kitchen as I have no idea how we'll secure the cupboards.

The nativity on Friday morning was great, Beth had a speaking part as the angel who told Mary she was going to have a baby (you have to imagine all this in Yorkshire accents - most amusing!). Her angel outfit was definitely the best out of all the angels (goes without saying) and she was pretty well behaved and certainly didn't cry. I did notice that it was all boys who cried and wanted their mums. After they had their Christmas party and Santa came to see them all. So far she's seen three Santa's, all very different (one female, two skinny, one very grumpy) but hasn't noticed anything amiss!

Christmas Cheer (well, not quite yet)

We've all been sick for the last few days with coughs, colds and fevers. Always good fun trying to take care of a couple of overactive children when ill - I think the government should provide a nanny in these circumstances. ;) Although a nanny did not materialise (I'm beginning to doubt the existence of Mary Poppins) thankfully grandma and grandpa came to help out.

We've got our Christmas tree up, it survived the journey from CA in remarkably good condition though it has blown up one transformer. Toby doesn't seem all that fussed by the tree even when the lights are turned on (all 1,500 of them - it could only be an American tree!) and he hasn't really noticed the (few) presents underneath. Beth has also been pretty good with the presents as I've never seen her touch them. The chocolates are a different matter, they have all been mauled and squashed and I'm not sure if they'll be in a fit state to be eaten by anyone else (perhaps that's Beth's plan).

Last week we went down to see grandma and grandpa and helped to decorate their tree. It's a really nice real one and smelled lovely. Beth immediately gravitated towards the two angel dolls that we had as children. She dragged them round for a good few hours before catastrophe struck . . . Poor things, they managed to survive 28 years of abuse from Jane and I then one afternoon with Beth and they succumbed! I suppose that is a little harsh as I think the plastic may have become somewhat brittle and grandma and I may have been responsible for a limb lose each!

Anyway, Beth did a great job of dressing their tree - I'm not sure if you can tell, but she was in charge of the tinsel. :)

In other Christmasy stuff, there was a mum and toddler group party on Monday. Beth and I were a bit under the weather though you couldn't tell with Beth. I don't think I got a picture of her sitting down, hence the blurred photo here. Toby had a great time, he found the Little Tikes boat and I think could have played in it all day. I shouldn't be surprised as Beth loved 'the boat' when she was that age. Tomorrow is Beth's nativity (she's an angel . . . ) so I'm sure there will be a new post fairly soon.

Panto Fun!

We have just got back from a weekend with the grandparents. Apart from seeing them, our main reason for visiting was because we had tickets to go to a pantomime. It was Goldilocks and The Three Bears and we went with cousin Adam. If you're a bit confused by exactly what a pantomime is, I nicked this paragraph from Wikipedia as it explains it perfectly!

Traditionally performed at Christmas, with family audiences consisting mainly of children and parents, British pantomime is now a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, in-jokes, audience participation, and mild sexual innuendo. There are a number of traditional story-lines, and there is also a fairly well-defined set of performance conventions. Lists of these items follow, along with a special discussion of the "guest celebrity" tradition, which emerged in the late 19th century.

It indeed had all the elements of a good panto, a pantomime dame (very garish and played by an ex-soap star), a couple of guest celebrities (I'm guessing they are somewhat in need of money rather than doing it purely for their resume!), a good villain and plenty of audience participation. Beth really seemed to enjoy herself and clapped along quite happily. Toby was extremely interested but he only lasted until the intermission - I think his little head got overloaded.

Unfortunately I haven't any photos of the pantomime or of the kids at the pantomime as the theatre are pretty strict about letting you take pictures or film inside. Instead I included pics from last night when we went out for a walk. It's really cold (around 37º) and there was lots of icy patches. Beth thought it was great fun skating around until she ended up on her bum.

This and That

I haven't posted for ages as we haven't done a huge amount. Toby is still sleeping like a baby and waking up three or four times a night. I'm still grumpy and easily annoyed. He is really trying to crawl and can go backwards pretty well, he usually manages to get himself wedged under the sofa or squashed up somewhere else then shouts until someone rescues him! Hopefully once he properly gets moving he'll tire himself out and sleep (and sleep and sleep).

Toby's actually had quite a few adventures lately. Last week Beth decided that he needed to be in the other room to play so picked him up and promptly dropped him. His two bottom front teeth went straight into his gums resulting in a nicely swollen mouth and plenty of blood. Thankfully it healed in a couple of days and he didn't seem to notice too much.

At the weekend we got an early Christmas present (thanks g+g) of a rucksack/carrier for Toby for when we're out walking. He is getting a little heavy for the Bjorn so the backpack ones seem a good choice. He seems to enjoy going in it and must find it pretty comfy as he's fallen asleep both times we've used it. On Sunday morning we walked over to Cusworth Hall (where we normally feed the ducks). There is a footpath that cuts through all the farmers fields so we thought we'd explore. Beth did great and walked all the way there and a little of the way back. We checked on the map after and realised that she had walked just over two miles, no wonder she was complaining of having 'heavy' legs.

Of course Monday was first day opening advent calendars. Despite having no memories past a month or so, Beth knew exactly what our Christmas Tree advent was all about and also seemed to know that there would be somekind of chocolate for her. It's a good job I got to Tesco before the weekend or she would have been very disappointed. I think we'll try and get our tree up this week or next and I'll dig out the Christmas CDs - get in the spirit of the season and annoy everyone else by singing crappy tunes for weeks. :)

Centerparcs

Today we got back from a week at Centerparcs (a ‘holiday village’) in Sherwood Forest, about half an hour from home. It was a great week except both kids had bad coughs and colds and runny noses. We went with grandma, grandpa and Auntie Jane - a regular traveling circus. The villa/house was right in the forest and we had lots of visitors including squirrels, pheasants and all sorts of other birds. They were all a little too tame for my liking, I suspect in the past, there had been other little girls who were happy to share their breakfast with them too!

On the first day we weren’t really sure what to expect as none of us had been before so we headed straight for something to eat. The restaurant we chose was called ‘The Pancake House’ and was in a lovely location right next to the lake. None of us are that keen on pancakes (other than for breakfast with loads of syrup) but we figured there’d be other things on the menu. We thought wrong! It was a very bizarre collection of meals . . . I had the brunch pancake, it was a pancake cooked with mushrooms, bacon and sausage mixed into the batter then baked beans and a fried egg on the top. Everyone else had similar concoctions of varying degrees of ghastliness – it actually verged on comical. I think I will have to invent my own menu item and send it to them. I’m thinking of a Hawaiian/seafood theme with chunks of tuna and ham baked in with dollops of mayonnaise and pineapple on top, yummeeeeee. ;)

There were lots of playgrounds and areas to explore. Even though Beth wasn’t quite herself, she managed to spend hours (and hours and hours) playing. First she played on the windsurfers, and then on the swings, unfortunately the slide was a little too wet to venture on to. Toby also went on a swing for the very first time and was rather unimpressed though we did manage just a little smile. Beth’s playing continued with grandma’s introduction of role-play using a tree they found down behind the house. To begin with it was a house with a bedroom and a kitchen but then it developed into being Robin Hood’s (grandpa) prison (in Beth’s mind Robin Hood was the villain). I’m guessing that after 50 minutes of the same 30-second routine, grandma was beginning to regret the initiation of this game!

We also spent quite a lot of time playing hide-and-seek. Auntie Jane seemed somewhat bewildered that Beth could shrink herself small enough to hide behind a leaf or twig (glad to see she has good body image). When in the house, the play continued with cooking sausage and mash (bobbins) and serving them in delightful little dishes (eggcups). Meanwhile Toby did get to join in some of the fun and got to play with the foliage (well anything within his reach really) and experimented with lots of new food. His favourite was grandma’s leek and potato soup, which he inhaled.

There was a children’s disco every night but unfortunately we didn’t quite make it to any of them. With being ill and up in the night, we decided that going to a loud disco with lots of other kids hurtling about just before bed would not really encourage Beth to have a calm night. Instead Beth donned her party dress, grandpa played Jane’s guitar and we all danced to nursery rhymes and other unidentified songs. I think she probably had just as much fun but without the intimidation of lots of other kids.

One of the only upsets of the holiday was when we realised that Molly had been left behind at home. It could have resulted in a quick trip back home but thankfully Beth wasn’t too upset as there were lots of other distractions and daddy picked her up later in the week. The week was wrapped up with a Fab ice cream for lunch.

Couldn’t resist including this pic showing Beth and Toby in matching hoodies courtesy of grandma and her clicky sticks. They are affectionately known as their rainbow vomit tops.