A week in my life - Friday

Today was a fairly normal morning, up at 7, downstairs to have breakfast, toast for Chicken, banana mango smoothie (yummy!) for me, no coffee though, not sure why not either.   Actually thats not true,  I do know why, the repair man was coming to fix our Sky TV so Andrew did Chicken's breakfast while I showered, didn't want to get caught in my dressing gown!   Anyway after saying goodbye to Andrew and tidying Chicken up, we came downstairs again to play with the new stacking cups.  Apparently they are good fun!

Shortly after this it was time for Chicken's first nap, 9:30ish so I took her upstairs for a feed and a snooze.  I came down and tidied up, not that it seems to have made much of a difference, 24 hours later it needs doing again, oh well.  

The Sky man came just after 10am and fixed the problem - yay! Chicken woke up and we played some more until the door bell rang and it was the Postie dropping off three parcels, what a score!  One was these fab shades because I'm doing the European version of Dear Lizzy's Shades of Summer so we spend five minutes in the garden trying to  take a self portrait, not too bad on the whole I'd say.

 Then I spent ten minutes trying to get Chicken to pose with them on, she wasn't having any of it!

 The second parcel came from my mum and was this super cute outfit, thanks Nana!  The third parcel came from the book club I've joined, which reminds me I've got to get my act into gear and post my book!

After that we Skyped my little bro and his gf in Vermont while they ate breakfast, I'll just say one thing, Skype with a baby is quite tricky on an iPhone!  By the time we got off it was 12 and Chicken was already ready for her next nap so we cuddled on the couch and I may or may not have watched Murder She Wrote. 

Eilidh woke up around half one and by this stage I was soooo hungry I wolfed down a ham, cheese and gherkin toasted sandwich while her fish pie cooled down.  She likes fish pie, especially rubbing it into her face!

 Chicken was supposed to also have mango for lunch but as I dropped the whole bowl on the carpet, not the splash mat, it didn't happen.  During lunch my friend Jo rang to say she'd be at ours in twenty minutes to go for a walk so we ran around like headless chickens getting ready.  Chicken was covered in so much fish pie I had to changer her into her new outfit, which is just sooo cute!

After getting organised, changing two nappies (one very poopy one, sorry TMI I know) we were ready to meet Jo and George.  We went for a walk with Jo's dog to a park I'd never been to before but heard good things about, turns out its a cool park and we'll be going back soon! 

We got home and Chicken spend fifteen mins or so in her door bouncer while I sorted out our dinner plans, and it turned out we needed a couple of things from the shop, so it was back in the pushchair and off to the supermarket.

We met Andrew at the supermarket and whizzed around before coming home.  Andrew fed Chicken her dinner while I made a strawberry mousse and these Pesto Turkey meatballs.  He then took her up for a bath and by 7:30 she was sound asleep.

We had dinner which was great, meatballs were awesome, shame I put too much chilli in the tomato sauce, a bit overpowering.  I had a glass of vino and toyed with blogging or scrapping but as Andrew pointed out, I'm not very sociable when I do those things and since it was Friday we watched Cougar Town and blobbed on the couch.  Which is why I'm writing about my Friday on Saturday morning, happy weekend everyone!

A week in my life - Thursday

Chicken woke me up at 6am, she'd spent the whole night in her cot and was getting restless so I brought her in for a cuddle and she slept till seven, woo hoo!  I fed her and we came downstairs for toast (vegemite for both of us) and I started making our coffee.  Andrew spent twenty minutes on the phone to Sky TV trying to sort out our problem, it didn't work and I'm staying in tomorrow to wait for the repair man.

About 8am I took Chicken upstairs to get clean and the both of us dressed while Andrew showered.  I finished our coffee for takeaway because today E and I had to go to into London so we had to drop Andrew at work.  Normally it takes him 45 minutes to get to work but since it is school holidays we sailed there!  We headed home and Chicken slept and I listened to Radio 2.  When we got home I sat in the car and waited for E to wake up which happened about ten minutes later, half an hour is about normal for her first nap.

We came in and I did half an hour of my exercise DVD until Chicken got grumpy and I fed her.  I showered and got dressed and organised to go and meet my friend Alice.  We were on the road around ten to eleven.

The drive into West London took us around forty minutes, and Chicken slept and I sang along loudly to 1980's ballads on the radio.  When I left home it was tipping it down and the car temperature said 12.5c, thankfully in London there was no sign of rain and was 18c.  Alice and I work together and her baby is ten days older than Eilidh.  While we've been on maternity leave we've been meeting up regularly and last month we got to go to her wedding!  So so much fun!  We went for a short walk around a park and then headed to the cafe for lunch.  Lunch was in two stages, first stage for babies and second stage for adults, it took a while.  I had the most yummy ham and cheese toasted sandwich, and of course a coffee (can you tell I'm obsessed about coffee!?)  Al's husband Tom joined us and we had a good catch up.

About 2pm it started to rain, really rain, which meant we had to wait a while to get back to the car, we finally made it, which I was quite pleased about because Chicken had become that annoying shouty baby in the cafe, not good times!  Chicken slept on the way back home and was still sound asleep when we pulled into the carpark at our local(ish) baby store.  I again decided to wait until she woke up but this time it took over an hour, so I spent time on the internet on my phone.

Finally around 4:15 we headed into the shop to buy a few new toys, some stacking cups and noise makers, we haven't broken out the noisy ones yet but so far so good.  I ran into a friend and we discussed portable highchairs and stacking cups, highbrow conversation huh?

We then headed to the supermarket and I zipped around with the noisiest shoutiest baby ever!  She loves sitting in the seat in the trolley, but today it wasn't working, not even cheese snack things could distract her, so it was a quick zip around.  We left the supermarket about 6pm after having to run to the car in the pouring rain, Chicken did not enjoy that and went to pick Andrew up.  Chicken squawked for five minutes or so and then slept all the way home.

We got home to find out that because it had rained almost all day our cul-de-sac had flooded and we couldn't get to our house without getting her feet wet.  Apparently this happens regularly but thankfully a man had come to clear the drains.

Andrew and Eilidh played with her new stacking cups and had dinner while I got our dinner sorted.  She made such a mess that we took the whole high chair upstairs and gave that a bath too.  After a feed and cuddle from Mum Chicken was off to the land of nod.

 

We at dinner around 7:45 and we're now watching How I met your Mother and The big bang theory with a glass of wine.  And that was our Thursday.

PS All the photos were taken using the instagram app.

A list on Sunday

I have a lot of mini thoughts to write about, but none of them by themselves would be a full post, so this morning, we have a list!

1.  Its been quite nice in my part of England this week and today we are having some family over for a BBQ. Isn't it typical that I wake up and the sky is overcast.  BBC says its going to be warm all day with a chance of rain in the evening, stay away rain!

2.  I've been meaning to bake a certain cake for about two months now.  Its a pistachio, lemon and polenta cake, the recipe comes from Sainsbury's magazine about two years ago and it looks good.  Why do I keep putting off making cake?  I mean, I'm quite good at that sort of thing, must do that today, it'll be nice for the BBQ.

3.  We went swimming at the local pool last week.  Now this would normally fill a full post, but since you are not allowed to take pictures in public pools (and cause I don't want photos of me in a swim suit on the net) it wouldn't be as much fun.  We did have a great time and Chicken really loves the water and is becoming more and more confident.  She also has the cutest outfit!

4.  My father-in-law Graham (and MIL Moira) are staying with us at the moment, and we asked him to do some gardening to tidy up a bit.  There is a privet tree out the front of our house and I said he could trim it as it makes me sneeze and it was quite over grown.  This is what he did.  Effective but it will take a bit of getting used to, and anyway, plants grow back.  And I am very pleased that the privet has gone!

5.  We watched Roman Holiday last night with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.  This was the first time I've seen a Hepburn film, great eyebrows and I love the pixie hair cut, but what big ears!  I got it at the supermarket for £3, and didn't realise till I got home that it was in black and white.  I really enjoyed it, such a restrained love story, they don't make em like they used to!

6.  Because the in-laws are staying I have farmed out my child Chicken is spending quality time with them while I write this, makes things go much quicker.  Thanks guys!

7.  I made ribs yesterday, two different marinades even.  And well, they were ok, I mean ribs, if not overcooked are usually nice, but these marinades didn't quite cut it.  I like sticky ribs and they had potential but ... oh well, I'll keep trying.  Apparently my little brother makes nice ribs, maybe he'll make some when we visit him in September.

8.  Speaking of my brother, his girlfriend Amanda, who make this amazing quilt for Chicken got a kitchen aid mixer for her birthday recently.  I am seriously jealous!  I covet one, sooooooooooo much, shame the voltage is different for electrical things from the US to the UK, I'd put one in my suitcase in Sept!

9.  I am going out this Wednesday coming at night time without Chicken.  Since she now takes a bottle I am going to go scrapbooking for a couple of hours.  I chose this time cause the in-laws will be here to help Andrew if needed.  I'll let you know how it goes, a practice run for the hens party in a month!

10.  I said to my friend Jo the other day (we are new friends btw) "I don't know if you've realised but my brain things about lots of different things at once, which is why the conversation changes a lot" and she said (in a deservedly slightly sarcastic tone, "No Jess, hadn't noticed at all, not!"  She also said she likes it and it keeps her on her toes because she has to pay attention to the whole conversation.  I hope she meant it and wasn't just being nice, I don't think so, she doesn't seem like that sort of person.

So, my point being, this list of ten is really just my stream of consciousness (I think that's what its called) on a Sunday morning.  Hope you have a relaxing Sunday, wherever you are!

Oh wait!

11.  My little girl was five months old yesterday, where has the time gone?

Spring holidays - the highlights reel NZ version

Hi everybody, (yes thats you Mum)
Sorry I've been away for so long, as I explained I went home to NZ for three weeks and then we went to Italy for a ten day holiday in Tuscany with the inlaws.  I've had a great time and over the next week or so I'll post in more detail about what we did, but for now, here are the highlights from NZ.

Spending time with Nana and Pops.  It was so great to introduce Chicken to her Pops, and for her to catch up with her Nana, and she totally remembered her too!

Catching up with old friends.  Jonelle and I have been friends for fifteen years now and she had her second baby a week after Chicken (they were due on the same day incidentally)  Good times.

Catching up with family.  Nic is my cousin who lives in my hometown with her husband and two boys.  I spent a few afternoons introducing Chicken to her cuzzies and catching up on family gossip.  We also had a birthday party for Leo where the whole family (and some very welcome extras) came to our house for lunch.  So good to see everyone again!

Catching up with my god-daughter and our BFF's.  Emma totally loves Chicken and it was really nice introducing her to our BFF's (and Emma's parents) Neil and Ange, and their boy Tyler.

Catching up with our Ldn friends.  Everyone came to Ange and Neil's for a pot-luck lunch and we had so much fun catching up.  I got to hear everyone's news, (how was that keg party Vicky?) and we got to meet Naomi, Rose and Jono's beautiful little girl.

Introducing Chicken to her Dad's family.  We spent 24 hours visiting Andrew's family and introducing Eilidh to her two great-grandmothers.  We also got to see my Aunty Barb and Uncle Murray - hey guys!

So that's it, a three week whistle-stop tour to catchup up with old friends and family, I had so much fun (count how many times I've used the word so, far too many!) It was really sad leaving because I really miss these guys, when I'm here in the UK there are lots of cool people to distract me, but as they say, there's no place like home.