Making hay while the sun shines

Now that she is nearing her first birthday, I am giving Emma a lot more table foods and letting her eat what we are eating as much as is possible for a baby with no teeth. She is really enjoying eating with us and actually eats much better when she has what we are having. I'm happy to report that she LOVES garlic bread!

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We are in the throes of a proper summer at the moment. On the grounds that you never know when the weather is going to break, we are trying to make the most of the sun while it lasts. For tea this evening I made roast chicken, warm potato and bacon salad, garlic bread and a green salad, followed by summer berries and cream...delicious! We took our meal in the garden, in the shade of our large green parasol and enjoyed the gentle summer breeze. After we had finished eating, the Podlings played in the paddling pool until bedtime. It was Emma's first time in the paddling pool and she loved it! I worried the water was too cold for her, but since she mastered crawling in and out of the pool on her own and kept getting back in, I figured the temperature didn't bother her unduly!

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I took lots of lovely pictures, but I can't post most of them as the Podlings were playing in the altogether and I don't want to put naked pictures of my children on the Internet! Suffice to say, a great time was had by all, though Tom never plucked up the courage to actually get into the pool properly and simply played with his Lego men in the sunshine. The boy doesn't like being cold and who can blame him!
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Tom dipped his toes in the water and decided it was too cold to get in. I love his face in this picture!
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Lily and Emma played happily in the pool together until it was time to come in and get ready for bed.
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Emma kept crawling in and out of the pool and loved being allowed to crawl naked around the grass. I couldn't resist posting this photo of her (I made sure you can't see anything!). Would you look at those adorable little rolls!

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Shorn

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It has been pretty hot round here lately, so I thought Tom might appreciate having some of his hair chopped off. Tom has masses of thick curls and I have to confess that I rather like keeping them a little longer. However, I figured the time had finally come to give my little man a proper boy's haircut, so out came the scissors (I cut both mine and the Podlings' hair myself). You would not believe the pile of curls that came off his head. I wish I had thought to take a photo of them! His new haircut will be much cooler for him in this hot weather and the cut is much neater than the mop of curls I had been making him sport. I think he looks lovely with his shorter hair, but I can't believe how much older he now looks. It seems like you just blink and your children grow up! It all happens much too fast!
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Tom posing with his Lego Storm trooper.
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A bed fit for a princess...

We've been having some trouble with Lily waking up at night and coming in our bed recently, so we thought the time had come to try her in a full size bed. She was getting too big for her toddler bed and every time she rolled over it made a lot of noise (and Lily is a fidgety sleeper).
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We ordered a lovely pine bed earlier this week, so when it arrived today I set about dismantling the old and assembling the new. I had to move the furniture around a bit to fit in the bigger bed, but the finished room is looking lovely. Part of the 'you must stay in your own bed' deal involved bed curtains. Emma has a little Bunnikins canopy over her cot and Lily has wanted her own canopy for a while. My mum and I bought this lovely Gisela Graham bed canopy that perfectly matches Lily's pink roses bedroom. The duvet cover is the one my mum made for me when I was a girl, so I am thrilled that my own little girl is now sleeping under it. I absolutely love this room now. It makes me wish I was a little girl again!
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Lily is beyond thrilled with her new bed and was trying to get me to take her to bed from about 4.30pm this afternoon! I finally took her up to bed an hour early at half past six. The funny girl wanted me to close the curtains, so her pretty bed canopy is now an effective mosquito net! Since she is very jumpy about moths and other flying insects, this may actually help to sleep better.
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The new bed is much more comfortable than her old one, so fingers crossed she will sleep better tonight. If she does wake up, I am hoping that she will find her new bed as thrilling in the middle of the night as she did this afternoon and will stay in it!

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Good penmanship

Tom and Lily do a lot of drawing. A lot! Obviously Emma has been watching and learning as I turned around today to find her standing at the children's art table, pen in hand, scribbling intently on a piece of paper. Lily was very excited and kept saying "Look, look, Emma is learning!" as she handed her a new colour. Seeing Emma scribbling with her pen reminded me so much of this photo of Lily drawing with a crayon at ten months old. The urge to make marks on paper seems to start early in this family!
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Father's Day Fun

On Sunday we took the Podlings to Amerton Farm with Mark's parents and my mum. It is a great place to take the family and isn't at all expensive (unusual for family attractions these days). The Podlings had a wonderful time in the play barn and completely wore themselves out on the bouncy castle. We enjoyed seeing the animals and Lily was rather excited to discover that one of the goats shared her name! Strangely, I think she was rather more taken with the animatronic cow in the play barn than she was with the real thing! We all had a wonderful afternoon. It was a lovely way to spend Father's Day.
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I can't believe how adventurous Tom is getting...he used to be so cautious! Both Tom and Lily loved this enormous slide and the very kind lady who was running it let them have a few extra turns each.
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Tom and Lily enjoy a ride on the merry-go-round.
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Mark has as much fun as the Podlings at these places!
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Emma poses in the under 4's soft play area
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Emma takes a turn on the bouncy castle
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Tom and Lily check out the steam engines at the end of our day

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11 Months Old

I can't believe that Emma is eleven months old today. That means that she is a mere month away from her first birthday and it really doesn't seem that long ago that she made her rather dramatic entrance to the world. I'm not ready for my baby to be one yet!
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Emma is at a delightful age. She really seems to be enjoying life and is on a permanent voyage of discovery. There isn't an inch of the downstairs that she hasn't tried to investigate and she is very much in to everything. I'm sure Tom and Lily weren't quite this active as babies! She is now pulling herself up on everything and has started slowly cruising round the furniture. I love her way of getting down from a standing position. Rather than letting herself down slowly, she simply let's go of whatever she is holding onto and plops down heavily on her nappy. So graceful!
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She now says "Mama", "Dada", "Nanna" and "Emma" and I rather fear she is currently trying to say "poo". I think she tries to say "Hiya" and "Ello", but I can't quite be sure enough to call it yet. She will wave and clap and has recently taken to doing the Indian cry (the hand over the mouth thing, not sure what it's called). She makes kissing noises when prompted and, to the favoured, will give lovely, big, open-mouthed kisses.

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Emma is so ready to be done with baby food. She wants to eat whatever we are eating, but given that the little darling still hasn't got a tooth in her mouth, this isn't always feasible! She can get quite annoyed if you deny her something that you are eating. She is a complete nightmare to feed at the moment as she just wants to feed herself finger foods. She has no interest in trying to spoon feed herself, but takes great pleasure in sending the spoon flying from the hand of whoever is trying to feed her. Mealtimes now involve increasingly elaborate distraction techniques as I try to shovel some nutrition into her busy little self! I can't say I will be sorry to see the back of the whole weaning thing!

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Taken just before bedtime in her 3-6 month size pyjamas, at 11 months old she is still a dinky little thing!

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Emma has such a delightful personality. She is such a strong-willed little thing and is full of character. She is such a bright little girl and I love to watch her learning and working things out. She is very determined and will keep at something until she gets it. As busy as she is keeping me at the moment, I am really enjoying this stage of her babyhood. She makes me laugh all the time! She is such lovely baby and brings so much joy to our family. We love our little Emma Bear!

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Starting school again.

Last night we left Emma in the care of my mum and went to Lily's school induction evening. It is hard to believe that I will soon have two children in school, but when September rolls around I will find myself with only my baby for company during the day. Although Lily is only just four, I do feel that she is ready for school. It is an excellent primary school and Tom has really come on so well since he started there last year. Lily is a very bright, sociable little girl and I'm confident that she will have no trouble settling in to the school environment. If I had any concerns previously, they would have been dispelled last night after watching her trot around the corridors and classrooms like she was already a pupil! We had trouble getting her to leave she liked it so much! Whether she thinks it is such a great idea when she realises I won't be with her all day remains to be seen, but for now she seems quite excited. She will have an afternoon visit with her new reception teacher in two weeks time, so I am looking forward to seeing how she finds that. I sometimes think we mothers are more concerned about starting school than our children!
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(You can read my thoughts following Tom's induction evening last year here.)

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"Starting school" by Ethel and Harry Wingfield. Image available from www.ladybirdprints.com

Are you using this?

I just love this photo!

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Emma loves to stand and is now pulling herself up on pretty much everything. Whilst watching Tom's sports day on Monday, her standing options were limited to her Nanny's walking stick!

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Sports Day

Well done Tom, we are all very proud of you and the effort you put in to your first sports day.

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On Monday morning, we all gathered on Tom's school field to watch our little boy in his first sports day. He ran in four races and, although he came last in all of them, he really had a great time. I'm sure he would have done better if he could have been persuaded to stay in his own lane. I think he ran about three times as far as the other children! One thing is for sure, he really put himself into his races and had a great time taking part. I think at his age, the actual position you finish in is completely incidental. I have a lovely picture of myself at Tom's age, proudly showing off my '7th place' rosette! Unfortunately, it was quite a chilly day, so in between the races Tom didn't seem to be having as much fun. The event ended up going on for two and a half hours (much too long for the age group in my opinion) and I think he got quite cold.

Monday was the 'individual races' sports day and this afternoon was supposed to be for the team events, but was rained off. Ah, British summertime...you have to love its unpredictability! The latter event has been postponed until July, so we will have to work on Tom's lane discipline before then!
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Tom really put his all into his races. He put so much effort into his skipping that he looked like he might actually take off, bless him!
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Lily congratulates Tom with a hug
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Since Emma has discovered the joys of crawling, she hates being confined to her pram. As the event was going on for rather a long time and Emma was getting unhappy, we got her out of the pram and let her crawl on the damp grass. She was quite content to explore the school field and eat mud. With hindsight, an all-white outfit was not a good choice!
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What's up Duck?

Our first job when we arrived at the Lakes the other week was to find a suitable spot for our picnic tea. We went to a nice, quiet spot near Windermere and set out the picnic things. We were quickly joined by a handful of opportunistic ducks, no doubt hoping for a taste of our fare. Emma was completely fascinated by these feathery gatecrashers. She clearly wanted to get her little hands on one with every fibre of her being! Thankfully, the ducks could waddle faster than Emma can crawl on grass so she never got one, but I bet I know what she wants for her birthday now...
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"I REALLY want a duck!"
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"Will somebody PLEASE get me a duck!"

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Talacre beach again...

We took a trip to Talacre beach again today and were joined by Mark's parents, his brother Greg and Greg's girlfriend Kelly. We had already asked Mark's mum and dad along, but Greg and Kelly were last minute additions that made the Podlings' day. They are both great favourites with the children and Lily absolutely adores Kelly. It was so nice to have the family there with us, we were just missing Mark's youngest brother Ryan. We are hoping to all go again together soon, though hopefully on a warmer day. It was pretty chilly there today!
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He sits! Tom is not often still at the beach, so I had to snap this picture while I could.
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As you can tell from her face and cardigan, Emma had a fantastic time eating sand again!
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Nanna and Tom looking for shells

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The Podlings with Auntie Kelly and Uncle Greg. Greg quickly realised quite how heavy a four year old can be, but he manfully carried her all the way back to our spot!
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Lily and Grandad

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A little of what you fancy...

"What a pretty flower!"

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"Oh, it's a buttercup!"
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"Now I must ask myself the age old question...
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...do I like butter?"
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The Lakes in Bloom

The Lake District is beautiful this time of year, with the wild flowers in full bloom. I tried to capture some of their beauty with my little camera and this is the best I could manage. Nothing compares to seeing them 'in the flesh', but it is nice to have a few pictures to remember them by.
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A little trip

Mark and I decided to take advantage of the Bank Holiday Monday to take the Podlings on a visit to the Lake District. We left home on Sunday, stayed one night in Kendal and got home late on Monday night. It was only a short visit, but we had a lovely time. It was the first time we have been on holiday with all five of us and it was, obviously, harder work than when we went on holiday last year. This is more to do with Emma's age than the fact that there are five us. Travelling with a baby is always somewhat challenging, especially when said baby wants to be exploring and the rough ground around the Lakes means that she can't get down and crawl. I suspect Emma will enjoy these things more when she can toddle after her brother and sister.
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It will come as no surprise to learn that I took a lot of photos during our short trip, so I will be sharing some of my favourites this week. First, I must restore some order to my home, which is suffering from my lack of attention during Lily's birthday celebrations and a busy weekend.
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