Happy New Year!

Today marks two special occasions. Firstly, after months of pursuing builders for quotes we have finally submitted our grant application to the council. This means we should be able to start work on Sunnyside at the beginning of February. I feel we have at last reached the first milestone on a long journey.

Secondly, today is New Year's Eve, and we celebrated with our lovely new neighbours, Ron and Barbara, who cooked us a delicious chicken casserole.

We had a lovely afternoon and look forward to returning the favour when we have a working kitchen.

Merry Christmas

For James the last few weeks have been a marathon of present opening. It has all been a little overwhelming for him, but he has throughly enjoyed it. The best present of all was actually the one we bought for Pops. This super-sized saucepan proved to be a great place to stand in and even better for carrying around all the other toys.




James was ready for his roast goose a little before it was cooked!

It's party time!

Yesterday James went to his nursery's Christmas party. There was pass the parcel, musical bumps, disco dancing, sausage rolls, chocolate fingers, balloons and Father Christmas. James had a fabulous time and, predictably, when it came to bedtime he took all of three seconds to fall asleep.

Birthday boy

Today James is 2 years old. He had a lovely day with lots of presents. Here he is on mummy and daddy's bed, very pleased with his new toy tractors.












We then went to a toddlers carol service at church, and had lots of fun throwing crayons around with his friend Agnes.




Then a visit to Grandma and Grandpa to discover a shiny new thomas-the- tank-engine train set. Choo choo!



...followed by a visit to Nanna and Pops for more presents. He was very pleased with this train that Pops had made. He was particularly fascinated by the way that you feed wooden sausages into the funnel and they miraculously appear in the fuel box. Not sure if this is how real steam engines work but it's fun!

But before we go home, James had to try on his new Thomas vest. Interesting look James - I think this is what Trinny and Suzannah call "layering".

Thomas

Since we borrowed Grandma & Grandpa's video, James has been obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine. Here he is sporting cousin Jacob's new jumper. Thanks to Nanna, another one is already in production.

Ruth, Abigail and Jonah

We had a lovely day yesterday with Ruth and her two beautiful children. Jonah is a gorgeous and very happy baby.





Despite having the odd "disagreement", Abigail and James had fun playing together. Here they are enjoying the autumn leaves.

Daddy work

James is very keen to help Daddy with his work. He has booked several appointments in the diary and written a few cryptic post-its.

On the farm

Back in September, James had a lovely time at Godstone Farm with his pals from Babies Club.




After petting the rabbits and the sheep, James and Agnes ran off together and discovered a puddle!

Memory Lane

Today we met up with cousins Gary and Emma, and Emma's two beautiful daughters BB and Ellie. It was a great trip down memory lane and lovely to catch up on what they are all doing now.

We look forward to the next time. James and Lizzy shared a ride in the pushchair and were both very good babies all day.

Train cake

Today we celebrated the twins' 2nd birthday with lots of our lovely family and some train-shaped carrot cake.


followed by a game of pass the parcel. It's amazing how much fun three toddlers can have with some party whistles.

The Canada crew

We have had a lovely few days with Auntie Jill, Uncle Gilbert, Jacob and Elizabeth. The three children have played very nicely together. Jacob's first words to James were "cousin James, he's a nice boy".

Today we went to Auntie Daphne's to show them some cows



and had a quick ride in some wheel barrows










But most of all, the boys enjoyed climbing on the tractors.

Spiderman

It is dressing up week at nursery owing to halloween. James went to nursery this morning dressed as a spider. Thanks Isaac for the loan of the outfit!

Bonfire

This weekend we enjoyed a glorious bonfire. We started on Saturday morning and with the help of neighbour Christine and her friend Sandy we transferred this enormous pile of rubbish bit by bit onto the bonfire to ensure we didn't burn any nesting hedgehogs, but the only thing we found nesting in the pile were five rats!

We managed to dispense with two of them thanks to Yvonne's shoe and Maisie's jaws, but the others got away. By this afternoon the embers were still red hot so we restarted the fire with yet more old rotten wood, felled damson trees and other garden rubbish. Looking forward to many more days like this at Sunnyside.

Potato

Today James and I had a nice lunch with Grandma and Grandpa, and then we went to Sunnyside to dig up our last few rows of potatoes. James helped to pick up the potatoes and put them in the trug. Hopefully this will be our last weekend without Daddy who is back on dairy hygiene inspecting from next week.

Daddy's shoes

I love to wear Daddy's shoes. It makes Mummy laugh when I put them on, and then I can't help laughing too.

Boo to foot and mouth

Mark enjoyed just three days working with Justin before getting called back to foot and mouth duties.



Maisie had a lovely time. She is hoping to go and play on Justin's farm again soon, so please pray for an end to foot and mouth.

Photo shoot

You couldn't really accuse James of being camera shy...

A nice weekend

We have had a lovely weekend, spending Saturday at Auntie June's for un-Christmas, followed by a relaxing Sunday.
We went to church today after what has seemed like a long break due to work, holidays and tiredness. James was delighted to see his friend Agnes again.








We then met up with Uncle Matt and for cups of tea and stories.

Spending time at Sunnyside

This afternoon we took Daddy his lunch and then went to Sunnyside for a little bit of wallpaper stripping and fireplace bashing, followed by a welcome cup of tea with our lovely neighbour Christine. James was very pleased with the car that Christine donated to him.







Our vast but heavily overgrown garden is still producing treats for the house. Any ideas what the name of this plant is??

Me and my best friend

Today I went to the park with my best friend Isaac. We took some bread and fed the ducks and the swans and ourselves.




Maisie had a swim in the lake. Then we went to the playground. Isaac and I played on the swings and the slide and then we did some jumping.







After that we played football and took turns at throwing the ball for Maisie.

Isaac stayed for lunch but we were a bit full from all the duck food.


I am looking forward to seeing Isaac at nursery tomorrow.

We're back!

Hurrah! After nearly two months of no computer, we are now back in business with our shiny new macbook pro. Here is a quick update:

Drawing a picture for my Auntie Jill's birthday










Mab mowing the lawn at Sunnyside.











James looking cute...








... and helping Daddy with his office work









Mab hard at work at Sunnyside. Thank you Barbara for the plentiful supply of tea and cake!






A sample of our harvest. I think the tired stage of pregnancy may have passed, as I managed to dig up a row of potatoes and harvest these courgettes.

We have just come back from a lovely long weekend in Cumbria with Jon, Han, Dan and the lovely new baby Bethan. The two little boys had a great time getting up to all sorts of mischief.

An enjoyable walk up Reston Scar






And here is the lady herself. Beautiful Bethan Bean Burgess















Mab and Jon managed to sneak off for a climb on Sunday evening. They arrived back for their dinner at 10pm in true BST style, after struggling to find their way back down in the dark.










We were joined by Chris Pocock and on bank holiday monday
we all went for a picnic at Fell Foot park.




The boys found it highly amusing to be chased around the park by Jon, and kept running off in opposite directions squealing their heads off. We found it quite funny too!









After a really fun weekend, interspersed with a spattering of "incidents" James has been renamed The Shark and Daniel is now known as Bait Boy. Here is James getting some practice with the Bob the Builder set after Daniel had tried drilling him in the head.

Despite the odd shark attack the boys got on very well. So much so that James woke us up at 5am the morning we got back asking for Daniel, and we are told that Daniel has insisted on using James's toothbrush in memory of his cousin!