Photo a Day catch-up

01 June 2012

 Another blurred photo but I still want to use it in my Project Life album.  This was taken round at Alice's Great Grandma and Great Grandpa's house (my Mum and Dad) where she is quite at home.  She had picked up Mum's headphones and was listening to CBeebies through them :)

02 June 2012

 Playing Peek a Boo from behind the washing line pole.  So cute!  (Mac loves to be near Alice and was quite happy to lie there as she played).

03 June 2012

 While Mum, Emily and I were waiting for the Diamond Jubilee Parade to start, we got talking to the lady and gentleman next to us.  They were such fun and had us laughing while we waited.  More photos of the parade to come soon.

04 June 2012

As it's a Bank Holiday today (and tomorrow), Jon has been home and he enjoyed being able to get down and play with Alice.

xx

56:365(+1)

As it says on the collage, a day of firsts yesterday :).  I am loving the warmer weather we've had the last couple of days and it's almost feeling spring like.  I daren't get too excited because you just know there will be some colder weather round the corner but, for now, I'm making the most of this weather and getting outside as much as possible.

Hope you're having a good weekend where you are.
xx

Our weekend

Our weekend. On Saturday afternoon my nephew, Kyle and his girlfriend, Emma, came round with a birthday present for Alice and, as Craig was playing football in Eastbourne, Claire and Alice came round to spend some time with us too. 

We decided that Alice could open a couple of birthday presents early so she could take them home to play with.

 She got one from us

 which I think she liked (even if it gets used as a walker half the time)

 And she got the playtime bus from Kyle and Emma :)

We had cakes

And Emily took this photo of Jon on Rememberance Sunday. 

There was also grocery shopping to do, birthday cards to be bought, meals to be made and washing to be done. All in all, a good weekend that went too quickly.

xx

So Happy :)

I haven't been able to get this for ages!!

 but today it was back on the shelf at Waitrose - which makes me so happy!! Nothing nicer than a cup of Turkish Delight Hot Chocolate on a cold night, mmmmm :)

And a couple of photos of Jon opening cards and presents yesterday.

He had a good birthday and we had a lovely meal out with Emily and my Mum and Dad (but I forgot to take my camera).

Quieter day today - coffee with friends this morning; a quick visit to Claire and Alice to see how Alice is - she's not been 100%, has been very clingy and has a runny nose. We think she may be teething again but she's definitely not her normal happy self :(   Now to go and make a start on the last six months filing!

xx

Happy Birthday, Jon!

Happy Birthday to my husband, Jon

(Photo was taken a couple of weeks ago when he was working from home, in the garden. I'm happy to say that the beard has now gone again ;-)  )

Luckily Jon is working from home again this week and so gets to spend his birthday with us.  We will be going out for dinner tonight to celebrate.

xx

Oh my goodness!!

This week is half term and Emily and I are making the most of not having to get up at 6am!  I have been reading again (something I don't do too often because once I start on a book I don't want to do anything else until I've finished it - and I'm not that fast a reader!), getting up a bit later and have met up with friends and taken Emily out to dinner. We're just relaxing, (in between homework and essential housework eg. washing and cooking) and making the most of this week off.

I realised today that I haven't mentioned on my blog that Jon is now working away from home. He leaves early on Monday mornings and gets back on Friday evenings - the reason for this being that he's taken a contract which is a fair distance from our home and it's not practical for him to commute. He's done his fair share of commuting in the past but this one is just too far. He started the contract 6 weeks ago and has another 8 months to go. I was saying to Mel earlier, it's worse for Jon than it is for me as he is there on his own while I still have all the family at home and plenty to keep me occupied. One of the positives that has come out of it is that Jon and I now have a weekly "date" on Friday evenings when we go out for dinner and catch up on what's been going on. That's our silver lining ;o)

Little Miss Alice is one of the family members who keeps me occupied and this morning when Claire brought her downstairs she was so cute I had to take a photo. But how is it they know when you point a camera at them and it doesn't take long for her to go from this (above) to this (below). It's almost like she's hiding from the camera already!! I'm having to be much quicker at getting my shots otherwise I get the back of her head!

I'm hoping as she gets a little bit older she'll be more responsive again :o).  Maybe I need to put a slightly shorter lens on the camera too??

xx

Update for the week

It's been a fairly busy week with Emily being on half term, Claire on maternity leave, Jon's birthday, some ebay selling and an exciting purchase for me ;)

 Let's start at the beginning though. As I mentioned in a previous post, it was Alyssa's 1st birthday on Monday and then it was Jon's ?? birthday on Tuesday. Claire and I went to the South African shop in Redhill and got Jon some Castle beers, biltong, peri peri spice and a couple of other bits as part of his present. (As usual when we go to the South African shop, we also bought some curry powder, chocolate, crisps, etc., etc. ;o)  It's fatal!!  )  Jon had arranged to work from home that day, so didn't have his usual commute to work, which made it a more relaxing day for him. In the evening Jon, Emily and I went to our favourite Indian restaurant for dinner but by the time we got home we were all so full, Jon decided against doing his birthday cake. We made up for it on Wednesday though and he blew out his candles when he got home from work.

 Wednesday was also the day we had to wait in for the delivery of the pram, car seat and cot mattress. It was due anytime between 8am and 6pm but fortunately got to us just after lunch.  Claire unpacked everything and set up the pram - she says she needs the practice so she knows what she's doing once Alice is here ;o)

 We did wonder if the neighbours curtains were twitching when we went out to try fitting the car seat in my car - again to make sure we know what we're doing for bringing Alice home from the hospital. Luckily it's fairly straight forward so I don't think we'll have any trouble.  I can't believe it's only 16 days till due date - eek!! ;o)

 As I mentioned at the top of the post, Emily has been on half term this week. We've enjoyed not having to get up at 6am (or earlier in her case) and having a chance to relax a bit. She was finishing off some homework this afternoon but I think she's about done now.

 She's also been playing her guitar a bit and on Tuesday went to a band practice with some of her friends. By the sounds of it they didn't do a lot of practicing that day but they had a great time hanging out together.

 This is my exciting purchase :o)  :o)      I put my 400D and 40D on ebay as well as one of my zoom lenses, in the hope that I would raise enough money to be able to go and buy this one. I got nearly enough to cover it and Jon said to go ahead. Why did I need this camera when the others were doing a good job?? This one has video as well as a better spec for photos. I'm thinking that the video is going to come in very handy once Alice is here and I'll be able to post little bits here on the blog too :o)  I'm still working my way around the camera but, so far, it seems pretty straight forward. I'm waiting for a better spec SDHC card to arrive so I can shoot the video and after that I'll have to get Emily to come and give me some lessons in video editing and posting. So glad she knows what to do :o)

And this little man is just the cuddliest, most affectionate cat! He comes and curls up next to me on the sofa in the evenings and is happiest being stroked and cuddled (but don't pick him up!). He was curled up right against me in this photo but when I called his name he looked up and I got this shot. Sweet boy!

I'm now off to watch X Factor. Hopefully I'll get to post more regularly but we've got a lot of little bits to do before baby arrives so please bear with me.

Have a wonderful weekend.
xx

Our first visitors

Over the next couple of months we have a number of visitors coming to stay with us. It's going to be lovely seeing everyone again. We started a couple of weekends ago with Michelle, Matthew and Josh coming to stay with us. Unfortunately they could only stay the one night because Michelle was working the days on either side. She's working a lot of shifts at the moment, on top of planning their wedding, so it was great to get a chance to see them again. Josh loves following his grandpa (Jon) around when he comes to us and this weekend was no exception.

We took Cloud for a walk and she didn't act up when Josh held the lead, so he enjoyed that.

When we got back Michelle and Matthew were having a nap so Josh and I spent some time taking photos ;o) (you've got to start them young lol!). He was using my little point and shoot and I used my DSLR.

It got a bit confusing at times but nothing we couldn't sort out.

Josh and Grandpa

.

I promised Josh that if he let me take some good photos I wouldn't post the ones where he was pulling faces! Worked out well ;o). We're looking forward to seeing you all again in May!

xx